Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus, our guest in this edition as
country music star Craig Morgan. But before this chapter of his life, he
was Craig Morgan Greer who served seventeen years in the US Army. More than
ten of those years were on active duty, and he served with a one
hundred first and eighty second Airborne Divisions. And Craig, thanks so much for
being with us. Thank you. Where were you born and raised? Born
and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm the guy. I'm the one well
up until this guy, Jelly Row in the music industry came along. I
was the only one that was literally born in Nashville. I had to move
away and make them think I was from somewhere else to get him to work
with me in the music business. Had there been a history of military service
in your family? An uncle? My dad was one of six brothers,
and only one of those serves. But as far as my dad or granddad,
they were all none of them served. Why did you decide to serve
and why did you choose the Army? I chose to serve because I wanted
to do something different for some reason, I grew up. Even as a
teenager, I worked with the rescue squad, the Volunteer Fire Department. I
look back now, I don't think I really realized it then, but I
had this sense of service. I wanted to do something that allowed me the
opportunity to help other people. Now, I think at the time, I
was looking for the idea of the adrenaline rush of being able to jump on
a fire truck and put out a fire. And you know, we all
have idead As a young man, had these heroic visions of again being able
to do stuff for other people. But I really think now as I look
back, it was just wanting to be a part of something that was about
more than just myself. And where did you do your training? I went.
I was under the OST program, the one station unit training in Fort
Sille, Oklahoma, because I was a third fox Ford observer throughout my whole
career. Yeah you're an artillery guy. Yeah, but somebody you got the
chance to be airborne. How did that work out? It was wonderful.
I loved it. I loved jumping out. I did it throughout my entire
career. And there were a couple of places here and there, that I
was stationed where they'd I wasn't on jump status, but for the most part,
and for most of my Army service, I was on jump status.
I just you know, it was really funny when I enlisted. I remember
going to the map station, uh and they said, the recruiters said,
you want to be airborne, and I, this is the truth. I
really thought that a man I'd be flying in some capacity or you know,
being born in the aircraft. I didn't really know I was gonna be jumping.
So by the time I was enlisted and I figured out what was going
on, it was kind of too late. So I went ahead and went
through it all. What's that like jumping out? Was that the first time
you ever did it? Yes, it was in the Army, was the
first time. What's that feeling like? It's it's it's wonderful. It's awesome,
the idea of exiting an aircraft and you know, whatever speeds. And
I had the great forceing of jumping out of almost every aircraft in an Army
inventory, as well as a bunch of Air Force aircraft. It's exciting.
You know, when I talk about those things, I tell people, if
you can convince yourself to do something like that when you stand ready to exit
the aircraft and you know that it's either gonna be really good and everything's gonna
work, or it's gonna be really bad. And for the most part,
they've gone through this so many times and done it that they've alleviated, you
know, all of the negatives that could take place, so you're fairly confident
that everything will happen as it's supposed to. You'll exit feet needs to get
a parachute open, make a dynamite parachute landing fall, and everything will be
good, get up and walk away. But I know it don't always work
out that way. Sometimes there's issues. But that's the wonderful thing about that.
When you you have it's such an adrenaline rush, But on top of
that, it's knowing that you're training for the opportunity to potentially go somewhere and
have to do that to protect the freedoms of our nation. You mentioned you
were a forward or long range observer with the artillery. Explain what that role
entails. So my job was to call for adjust and identify any round that
a bullet that was shot onto the battlefield from a weapon system other than a
direct fire weapons system for example, shoulder fired weapon system. But like mortars,
artillery, close air support, which is the aircraft that dropped bombs and
bullets, attack helicopters, any of these aircraft, naval gunfire, any bullet
that was shot from way away onto the battlefield. I was the guy out
there in front of everybody telling them where to put those bullets. Your hearing
is really good for spending that much time with artillery. Oh no, my
hearing is horrible. That's why yell. I can't hear a thing man,
which is terrible for a musician. Yeah, that's that's a little bit of
a challenge. So how do you accurately identify the target and give the or
it's training train as you find You know, it's important and imperative. I
can't tell you it'spacially early in my career, you know, you're talking about
in the late eighties and early nineties. You think about where we were at
as a nation in relation to other nations, especially bad players in the world.
So we studied and studied and studied cards, We had pictures, all
of these things that you go through over and over and over, and when
we would do training exercises, we would actually the military would actually replicate those
enemies, vehicles, clothing, all of those things. And we had great
technology, and you know, it's advanced so much even since then that I
mean shooting now we can tell you what kind of cigarette they're smoking. You
also attempted to become a ranger a couple of times. One time you had
to stop due to a family crisis and another time you got hurt. But
one of the things you stress in your book is that being a ranger and
just like so many other things in life, you gotta want it real,
real bad to go through what's required to become that. So what did you
learn from from that experience and what it takes to pursue a goal of that
difficult Uh. Intestinal fortitude was a term that they came up a lot,
and I would describe that as having the mental capacity to push yourself beyond what
you think you might be able to do. The body is an amazing,
absolutely amazing machine, but we don't we don't have the we don't always have
the mental capacity to push that body to its capacity. So it's that we
I just remember all the time here and you're gonna have to have the intestinal
fortitude to be able to push yourself beyond the pain and you can't. I
mean, we've seen numerous things over the years where people have done certain things,
like you know, they broke their leg and they still managed to.
I watched it in in Korean Rangers school and I went through that school and
I watched a TUSA, the Korean Augmentation of the United States Army Soldier finish
a one hundred mile road march with a broken leg. So we have you
can do these things. And that's what Ranger school, and that's what the
Ranger Battalion, any of the Special Operations community that I think that's the one
thing that that is taught more than anything, it's the mental attitude towards your
occupation, having the mental attitude to push yourself with the end goal of getting
home. You mentioned your time and Korea with the Korean Rangers. That seems
to have been a pretty formative deployment for you, not only for your military
career in the work you did with the Rangers, but also a musical opportunity
that started to take it from more of a hobby to starting to put an
idea in your mind. Yeah. Being born in Nashville. My dad was
a musician, so I grew up in and around the music. But I
actually, as I stated in my book, I think I wanted to get
away from that. I wanted to do something than what was going on in
my life at that time. So that's why I joined the Army, and
I dabbled at it throughout my career. I mean even in Airborne School.
I wrote a song about the Test Platoon, the first jumpers ever to jump,
and in the process of doing that, the Black Hats heard about it,
and at the time, the commander of the Airborne School was a guy
named Leonard B. Scott wrote the book Charlie Mike, and he come to
me in and said, we want you to perform this song that you're writing
at the Test Platoon banquet. It was the first banquet that that So it's
for me and the music and the military have always kind of played, but
it wasn't until I got to carea that I had a lot of free time.
That was like a real duty station where you know, we had some
free time and I had a guitar and I wrote a bunch and my buddies
were very encouraging and all that stuff. You know. So there's still a
lot of that goes on today. I see that when I go overseas and
visit it. Uh, these young men and women that are serving and they're
hanging out in the barracks playing music and stuff. It's just a great way
to kill some time and and and develop your talent. And that for me,
it started then. And you want a special contest over there? Yeah,
that allowed you to open for I think, let's saw Your Brown?
Right, I saw your Brown? You gotta tell that story the interaction you
had years later. Yeah, so so I opened up for Saw Your Brown.
I won the US Army Male Vocalist of the Year contest in Korea.
And the reason I did that is because if you win, you get to
go and what we used to do and they may still do it. They
did a thing called the Soldiers Show where it was nothing but soldiers from all
over the Army and they would travel the world's doing entertaining our troops. It
was a really cool concept. Uh I want. I'm like, yes,
I get to go do this, but my unit wouldn't release me. We
were short on thirteen foxes. So they're like, yeah, congratulations, but
you don't get to go nowhere. But I did get to open up for
a group that came over to Korea, and it was right after they had
won a TV talent show and it was saw Your Brown and I'll never forget
it, you know, it's a cool thing for me. Well years fast
forward, years years later, here I am in the music industry and doing
one I was with Sawyer Brown, and I walked over to Mark, who
he and I are now good friends, and I went up on his bus
and I said, man, I don't know if you remember this, but
a long time ago, you guys went to Korea right after y'all had won
the TV show and y'all did a show and there was a guy that opened
up for you and I was getting to it, you know, And he
goes, oh, yeah, that guy sang his butt off, but he
couldn't play guitar for nothing. And I said, well that was me.
He goes, well, some things don't change. That's fantastic. You later
advanced to become a non commissioned officer at the Air Assault School at Fort Campbell,
and you said you actually prefer air assault to standard paratrooping. Explain why.
I don't know. I think I just I really enjoyed. There was
a lot more involved, first of all, and I'm a I'm a master
blaster. I went to jump master and I went through you know, repel
master and all that stuff. The jumping was fun, but there was a
I don't know why, for whatever reason, this is just me. I'm
I can't speak on behalf of everyone that's ever the stress level for a jump
master is through the roof. I mean it's intense because you got a hundred
jumpers or one hundred fifty jumpers, however minty jumpers, and you're the guy
responsible for ensuring when you do that JMPI that the inspection on them. You're
responsible. So if a guy who exits an aircraft and has something wrong,
it's your fault. And the same goes for a repel master. The intensity
of something going wrong isn't quite as bad. Not to say that people can't
get hurt, because it does happen. We've lost soldiers repelling for various reasons.
But but I just didn't feel like I didn't feel the same level of
stress as a repel master, and there was a lot more to it.
It's not just repelling out of aircraft. It's rigging the equipment that the aircraft
are hauling back and forth. So there was a lot. It was a
lot of fun and I enjoyed that one week come back. Craig Morgan shares
his story serving an Operation Just Cause in Panama, and he shares an important
perspective about how Americans should view relatively short combat operations. Our guest is Staff
Sergeant Promotable Craig Morgan Greer, better known as country music star Craig Morgan.
I'm Greg Corumbas, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles.
I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this edition is US Army Staff Sergeant Promotable
Craig Morgan Greer. You know him better as country music singer Craig Morgan,
but for seventeen years he was rising quickly through the ranks of the US Army,
serving in the airborne divisions. We now pick up his story as Morgan
explains that he was already assigned to serve in Panama in nineteen eighty nine when
conditions there took a turn for the worse and he soon ended up serving in
Operation Just Cause. I was actually a sign to the first five O eight
everyone Infantry Regiment in Panama. I lived in Panama. When I first got
my orders, it was considered an assignment where your family could go with you.
Shortly before I was scheduled to leave, we had a coup attempt.
Everyone would everyone that's old enough remembers a lot was going on down there.
So they stopped all accompanied assignments and made it an unaccompanied assignment. So my
family and I were getting ready to leave and then all of a sudden I
had to say bye. I had to go by myself. But I will
tell you that was a great That was a great experience for me, and
you know, ended up getting there right in the middle of all of that
stuff. So it was an intense tour from beginning until after Operation Just Cause
was over. Let's talk about how your role in combat kind of unfolded here,
because the first thing that happened is you you become the acting commander because
your commander was injured, and then you hurt your shoulder. Correct. Yeah,
So my lieutenant got shot and by commander it was a fire team,
you know, uh, and I was the senior fire support guy for our
for the company. He gets shot and gets taken out. Uh, we're
we're going into the U. We're actually landing on a golf course. We're
air assaulting in. And I exited the aircraft a little early. I think
we were about twenty feet or so off the ground. We had not touched
down just yet. I didn't realize it. And I was the guy in
the door and what they called the hell hole, uh so what we called
it, and it's well, you know, most of the road to warsh
is coming in right there on it. And I also had to unhook the
strap, and we had removed all of the seats and everything inside so that
we could pack more personnel in it. But I was the guy responsible for
undoing the strap and then first one out, and so I undid the strap
and I went out, and when I did, I realized when I hit
the ground that we were waited. We weren't touched down yet. Uh.
Fortunately everyone behind me knew they seen me fall. Uh. And I dislocated
my shoulder in the process of doing that, and it was my right shoulder,
so that made it difficult to fire my weapon system. Yeah, in
your in your book, your efforts to relocate your shoulder or I didn't say
I was smart. When we started this. To put that back will tell
you I thought I was tougher than I was too. I thought I was
tough. Uh. Yeah, I tried. I don't know why. I
don't know what made me think that banging it against a tree or a solid
object would put it back in place. But that's what I thought, and
I actually knew that if I could get someone to do it properly, it
would work, you know, by wrapping a towel and lay down and yanking
it bang. Ended up after a few days. Finally came across a medic
who was able to get it back in place. But at that point I
pretty much beat it up pretty good. So what's it like to be in
combat? And how does it compare with what you expected? This is my
perspective. I can't speak on behalf of anyone else that's been in combat,
but for me, when people ask me that question, I tell them.
For me, it was a lot like the movies. I literally related everything
that was happening to movies, you know, war movies. That's what it
felt like it was. Sometimes it was beyond surreal. There were moments when
I felt like I was watching myself do these things. And I'm not trying
to be not trying to be super weird or not, but that's what it
felt like. It felt like you sometimes you were having this out of body
experience, like like when we found there was a grenade with the spoon was
attached but there was no pen laying in the street, and everybody was freaking
out, and I remember just walking over to it and picking it up and
holding onto it and everybody's freaking out, running away from me and everything,
and I'm like, it's still attacks, you know, just find a pin,
we'll put it back in. You know, any second that spoon could
have popped off and I would have had to have gotten rid of it.
But I don't know. Things like that happened that you just don't think about
when you're getting shot at or or when you're shooting back. You just I
don't know. It was just I remember being on the aircraft when were going
in and the noise that I heard, that the sounds and you trying to
process that and going, man, what is that noise? Oh, that's
freaking bullets hit inside of the aircraft. That's bullets passing by. And you
could hear that even under the rotor wash, So I just remember all of
it's brand new, but I remember looking at it and especially looking back still
today, it feels like it was I was in a movie. I'm glad
you described so vividly the intensity of that gunfire, because I think a lot
of people, given the relatively short duration of operation, just cause think oh
it's Panama and no big deal. I mean, but there the intensity and
what you and the other people you were with and throughout that mission went through
lives were in harm's way. And so how did you and the other men
were with how did you lead during that moment? Oh? Train as you
fight, fight as you train. And I think you know, I've heard
a lot of people say this. I spacially hear a lot the law enforcement
officers talk about this. How you know when that when it happens, they
just go they just go into that mode. Uh. And I think that's
a truth, which is why training is so repetition. It's that those things
are so important, muscle memory, all of those things take place when you're
thrown into that environment. You either do it or you fell miserably and you
cuddle up. Uh. And I don't fault anyone for either that happens.
You know, some people are are are equipped for that, and some people
aren't. Uh, that's just a reality. And I think you just you
know, you you when you're when it happens, when the bullets start firing,
Uh, you just go into the mode and you do what you've been
training to do, you know. And the guy's like me when I join.
And I don't mean this in a well I'm always careful how I say
this. Well, I used to be. Now I've gotten to the point
now I don't really care. But you know, I trained for that.
I was a guy and this I don't mean this in a negative way.
But I joined the army to do that. I didn't join the army to
train for the rest of my life. I joined the Army to train and
then to go fight and protect the rights of the country. And I think
most service members do. I know there are some that go in there and
they just want to get their college money and they want to get back out,
and they hope and pray that they don't have to go to war.
As I've matured and gotten older, I hope and pray we don't have to
go to war. But I didn't join the Army to not go to war.
Back then, I joined the Army to go to war. So for
me when that happened, it was like boom, I get to do my
job now and I get to be a part of something greater than myself.
You also had the chance to work with the AC one thirty specter gunships.
Yes, talk about that collaboration. It was one of the It was one
of the greatest in my time of service because I got the I was in
the Army, but I experienced the privileges of the Air Force. I mean,
and people ask me, what do you you know, what would you
recommend? What branch of service would you I'm in that I go to And
I asked them a line of questions, and their answer to those questions dictate
what my answer would be. Because you know, if you're extremely strong headed,
and you you know you're you want to be the bull in the china
shop, join the Marines. If you're a bit of a thinker, but
you want to do some of that too, look at the Army. If
you like electricity all the time and a good soft bed, joined the Air
Force. I mean, that's what I would say, Uh, And that's
not an insult. It's just a reality. And I really had the great
privilege of meeting some very heroic people in the Air Force UH and being able
to do that job working on the specters. So I was the Army liaison
who flew on the aircraft. So I was actually on the aircraft kind of
like the UH. I was the go between between the Army and the Air
Force guys, you know, helping with communications and target identification and communicating back
and forth with the guys on the ground. It was a fun, fun
job that And we were in Hurlbert Airfield, Florida, So I got to
go to Florida lot. I was just down there. That's a fabulous place.
Yes it is. And so one of the bizarre moments is that your
wife briefly thought you were killed there. Explain what happened there unbeknownst to me
because I'm running around in Panama. I want to go back to something real
quick before I talk about this. You alluded to the fact that you know
the short duration of operation just cause, and that is it was obviously shorter
than Desert Storm or any of the further forthcoming wars and activities we were involved
in. But we should never underplay the intensity of those situations regardless, because
even though a war may last forever, a battle maybe a day, a
battle maybe weeks, maybe months, whatever, And that's we have to appreciate
that for these men and women that are serving when they go. I mean,
there are operations going on through around the world that we might not even
know about, and they might be three or four day missions. Uh.
You know, our Special Operations community is is working all the time, and
these guys experience what we have seen on the news that took place in Operation
Desert Storm again and forward. Uh. Those things were taking place before and
they're taking place now, uh in spurts. But because they don't receive a
lot of media, people don't understand the intensity. Uh, but take what
you've seen. We should take what we've seen on television, and those intense
moments, long battles, long wars, and and it still happens, even
though it might not be quite as long, the intensity is the same.
I just wanted to go back to that because you know, you look at
our World War veterans, Uh, those were those were you know, long
term. These guys were out there for a long time and it was some
very intense moments throughout that time. Those intense moments take place regardless of the
length of the war, and we should appreciate that for all of our service
members. Now, my wife, unbeknownst to me, while I'm over there
running around Panama doing the things we were doing, my wife is at home
with a baby, and she's actually down in Texas with her dad, and
a military vehicle shows up, pulls in the driveway. My wife's seen it,
and she wouldn't even go to the door because it was two uniformed service
members. And everybody knows that when if your spouse or loved one is overseas
and that happens, there's a good chance they're not there delivering good news.
They're not bringing you home, they're not surprising you. That don't happen.
So she was just mortified, scared so much she wouldn't even go to the
door. Well, her dad answered the door, and even he was upset,
she said, visibly upset, and because he thought that he was going
to have to hear the news that I had died, didn't have to tell
his daughter. But they literally went to the wrong house. They went to
the wrong house, you know, and that happens. It wasn't a bad
it think like they were doing something terrible. They just they went to the
wrong house and so for a few minutes there my wife thought I was dead.
Wow. Well, you mentioned a moment ago that there are missions that
we don't know about and special forces, and you were actually plucked out of
Panama and sat with some special forces and probably the CIA, although you sudden
you weren't quite sure. So what's it like working in those kind of sure
but not totally sure type of situation? This is just like a movie.
I'm telling you. That's my analogy, and I don't know any other.
I don't know a better way to describe it. It's just sometimes you again
have these out of body I did. I can only speak from my perspective,
but I remember as we were moving through the jungling, you know,
and we had to strip everything off of our uniforms, and there was no
patches, no names, no nothing to work to do what we were doing
on the mission we were on. And it's just you just don't It just
felt like a movie. And oddly enough, now watching movies, it's like,
especially movies that might it's exactly like that. Some of the movies I
watched now, and I go, that's exactly what we did. That's exactly
the way it happens. You just some stuff, you know, and you're
privy to only so much information, and yet you're here doing this. It's
you know, it's weird. It's kind of like being told to, you
know, come in here and clean the carpet. You don't know what kind
of carpet you're cleaning, You don't know what kind of cleaner you're doing,
but you show up and they hand you the cleaner and you and you're told
you better. Every spot has to get off or you know, you're not
gonna get paid, and you don't know if the carpet cleaner's right or you
know, but you go in there and do it and end up carpet gets
cleaned. Is that part of training where you just accept the fact that they're
only going to tell you so much and you don't really have to try to
press them with more information or anything like that. Why are we here?
What are we actually trying to accomplish? Yes? I think it is the
training, And you know we trained that way when I first started. First
of all, you gotta remember we didn't have we didn't even have internet.
Really, communications was very limited. We didn't have cell phones and all these
things we didn't have, especially didn't have Thank god, we didn't have TikTok,
Instagram and all that crap. You know, it's probably a good thing,
but there were numerous training operations, especially at a BRAG where I remember
the first time I got a bag phone. Remember the old bag phones.
Yeah, you carried it over your shoulder and you had it. I got
that because I got tired of when I would leave as a as a team
leader, I got tired of having to call into the c Q the charge
of and go, hey, it's a Sartain Greer. I'm gonna go to
the movie theater. I'll call you when I get there and let you know
what seat I'm in. Go to the movie theater with my wife and my
kid, go in the movie The Inner and set down and figure out where
I'm sitting. And I'd have to go tell that. Literally, this is
the way this happened when we were on on QRF and I would at to
say, hey, here's the person's name, here's the number. They know
where I'm sitting, and they would write it down at CQ so that if
a call came in and we had the deploy and it happened on numerous times,
and so you would get a phone call, the guy would come running
in. Hey, they won't They said you need to leave. So I
would go back to you. We would get there, go through the motions,
and sometimes that's as far as it would go. Sometimes you get on
a plane, you're on the aircraft. You don't know if you're going to
war or if you're just doing a training jump or what it is. And
you would get on the aircraft and they would hand you maps and everything and
you go, Okay, cool, we're training. We're gonna be jumping into
here and this is what we're doing. Or you would get a map and
go, this looks like South America. You just don't know, but that's
what you do. You trained for that. But what it does, it
forces you to think fast and work fast to process. Uh. That's why
I think soldiers and service members are the greatest people in our country. They're
the smartest, they're they're the they're able to do things that the average American
can't do. And it's because of those kind of situations. It's why they
make the best CEOs. They make the best leaders, and when they get
out, they become the best employees. One of my favorite stories in the
book deals with your ingenuity. You had been given an assignment during desert storm
that you weren't particularly pleased with. You wanted to be there, and you're
assigned to Fort Bragg, but you found a way to get over there anyway.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I should share the story. We'll leave
that. We might leave that, but because I'll tell you I did something
that was It was completely inappropriate and unprofessional. When you should follow the orders
every young service member joining the military Act, you really should follow your orders
as long as they're I mean, there is a I do believe we all
have a moral standing fourth which we should rely on. So if someone's telling
you to do something that is completely morally incorrect, you shouldn't. But telling
someone that they shouldn't go overseas, I don't think it was a moral So
I found a way to get there. Myself and another non commissioned officer by
the name of John Davis were to deliver some weapons down to a particular location
to be shipped over and someone came up with some orders that allowed us to
go with the weapons. I don't know where they came from. Didn't last
long though someone else found out their orders were not correct. We had to
go back to brag. So this is going on even in Panama. And
even as time's going on, you're getting more and more serious about your music
and you get more into writing as as the nineties unfold. So how were
you able to do that while you were still active duty and just in free
time, just like anybody else when they would You know, a lot of
people do a lot of things. Uh, you know, military people get
it. If you're not in the military, you don't understand being in the
military. You're not sleeping in a tent and getting up every morning and going
shooting people and doing those kind of things every day like you see in the
movies that that part of the movie only takes place in the war. Again,
now we have movies that depict that, that show people that have actual
lives and we all did. Uh. So my life when I wasn't at
work, when I would get up in the mornings, I would go in
do pt have clean up, have breakfast, make formation. We would do
training for our day, have our final formation day and go home just like
everybody it goes to work. When they go to work, they finish up
in the day and they go back home in the evening, and we would
have our weekends off for the most part. So during that time I would
I would write and play guitar and try to make stuff up and have fun
with it. I will tell you when all that was happening, I've really
never seen myself as a full time singer, slash writer or whatever. I
did enjoy writing, and I thought if I ever had the opportunity to do
something in the music business, I wanted to do it writing songs because I
knew that I could do that, even while I was doing what I really
enjoyed, which was the military, the army. And it wasn't until later
on that in the process of writing songs and recording those songs, I got
noticed as a singer. And even then, I will tell you, I
wasn't sure that I wanted to do it, because I knew how difficult it
was. I had friends that have been in business. I watched my dad
do it, and I knew that being a successful in a national touring artist,
now there's a difference in that and just doing it and doing it at
a regional level. There's a lot of guys that do and have a normal
job and they get up and go to work, and then on the weekends
they play in bars and clubs and they do they do well. They make
a lot of extra money in and there's guys that end up doing it and
they quit their job and that's all they do is travel around locally and try
to open up for guys that make it nationally and that kind of stuff.
But I really just wanted to write. I wanted to write songs and create
that way. And again, I knew that you could make money at that
right up front, if you get signed to a publishing deal writing for a
company, you could make money. Whereas in the entertainment world, uh,
you know, everybody thinks that. You know, like my first two years
of being in the business, everyone that worked for me made more money than
I did. Everyone, the band members, everybody made more money and I
did. So that's why I stayed in the Army. I kept thinking it,
any day I'm going to quit this crap and go back full time in
the Army and get out of the get out of the savey life, get
back into the Army. But every time I would think about that, something
would happen that would encourage me. God just nudged me every time. He
every I thought, I'm not doing this music crap, it's not who I
am. I'm a soldier. I'm going back. God would do something that
made me see that that's where I needed to be at the time. US
Army Staff Sergeant Craig Morgan Greer, when we come back, he has a
big decision to make pursue a dream of music stardom or pursue the top enlisted
position in the entire US Army, And later Morgan shares a big announcement,
I'm Greg Corumbas and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veteran's Chronicles. I'm
Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this edition is US Army Staff Sergeant Craig Morgan
Greer, better known as country music star Craig Morgan. At the end of
our conversation, Morgan will share some big news that had not become public at
the time of our conversation, but we'll get to that a little bit later.
By the late nineteen nineties, Morgan faced a dilemma continue a very six
scessful military career towards what was a very real chance of becoming the sergeant major
of the US Army, the top enlisted man in the entire army, or
follow his dreams of a career in music. Yeah, there were a couple
senior ranking officers that had I don't want to say befriended, whose opinions I
very much respected, having worked for him. One gentleman in particular, Colonel
Bill Greer, I'll never forget set down to his office in General Shelton,
who became later became a prominent figure in our military, in our political leadership
for our military. But both of them told me, based on how I
was performing and my all everything that was happening in my military career, that
I there was no question that I could be. They said, you could
be the start major of the Army if you keep on this path. But
Bill Greer said, as much as I believe that, I also believe that
you have an opportunity to be successful in that business. And you know,
and so he encouraged me to pursue it. And he's the one that said,
look, when you leave active, go straight into the active reserves.
That way, you don't lose any breaking. There's no break in time and
service, and if you feel like it's not what you want to do,
if it's not working out, you can come right back in. You don't
lose any rank, you don't lose anything. So it seemed like a perfect
opportunity. Of course, it absolutely broke my wife's heart. She didn't think
I should do it. She wanted to stay in the army. But she
was also very encouraging. You know, She's like, you know, and
I knew that I was at a point in my military career that if I
didn't try it, I wouldn't I wouldn't continue, I wouldn't try it at
all. Now, you know, looking back, I think i'd have been
okay with that. I'm not the guy that has regret. I think had
I stayed in the Army, I'm not the guy that would have went,
oh man, I wish i'd have done that to see if I could have
made it. I don't think that would have been my mindset. I would
have continued to write songs and play my guitar on the weekends with my buddies,
and I might have even became one of those guys who got to do
shows at local bars on the weekend, and then Monday got back up and
went to formation. You know. Uh, And there's nothing wrong with that.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I just chose the other path.
And and here we are. Listeners and viewers. You need to get Craig's
book, if for no other reason than the story of what he said to
General Shelton down in what we see. Yeah, you know, it was
dark. I couldn't tell who he was, and my mission was my mission.
I didn't realize that my mission was his mission too. That we were
on a training exercise, and uh, I was. I had we jumped
in early before everyone, myself and the LARST, the long range surveillance guy
that was with me, uh and my rto. We were there to call
for fires clear the drop zone so that the heavy drop and the personnel drop
coming in would be cleared. You know. So we go in early and
we do our thing, and we smulate clearing the battlefield, you know,
with artillery, and we had I think on that one, that particular training
extrade, we had simulated naval gunfire and the whole bit a lot of fun.
But I was told when the number three jumper on the number three aircraft
exited. That's who I go to. So we're on the drop zone waiting,
watching as the aircraft are coming. You can set them off in the
distance, you know, and we're you know, some identifying number three.
First off, we go, man, these aircraft are low. Something is
not right, and so they get lower and lower and lower, and we
realize, oh, holy shit, this is a heavy drop. This is
the equipment's first. We thought personnel were first and then the equipment equipments first.
So we run off the drop zone as the heavy drop comes in.
Then we run back to the drop zone and I'm watching the number three aircraft
and I'm watching number three jumper parachute pops. I go straight to him and
I run up to him and I'm like, are you Major such and such?
And he goes no, and I'm like, you know some inappropriate words
and and uh and he's like, what is it? And I said I
have to I'm here to debrief Major such and such and he goes, well,
you can debrief me. And I'm like, who the EF for you?
And he said selling, I'm General Shelton. You can tell me.
Yeah, And he took it well. Later, oh he was a champ.
He was a sport. In the after action review, of course,
I'm expecting waiting any minute to get my butt reamed out, you know,
because this young staff start mouthed off to the commanding general. But he was
like in the in the briefing, he literally said, where is uh?
We're starting? Who the EF for you? He called me out, and
my commander was you know, the colonel was there, Lieutenant Garner or Devarti
commander was there, and I had to explain myself to him what happened.
And but it all worked out, you know. And so you pursued the
music career, and obviously it's turned out to be a tremendous success. But
as we were talking before we started recording music, like pursuing goals in the
army requires a ton of patience, resilience, perseverance from setbacks. That's the
mindset you kind of need for life. It's kind of the point you like
to make in the book. Yeah, I would tell you that music was
worse. It was. It was much more difficult, uh, and is
and can be. It requires a lot of intestinal fortitude, mental patience.
You know. In life, we tend to compare ourselves to others doing what
we do. We use that as our bar or our balance and try to
figure out how to progress. And what I have learned through the military and
in every occupation that I've ever had, but in particular the military music is
your bar should not be set by others. You should set your own bar.
You should set your goals and based on what it is you can and
want to attain, not what others can and want to attain. In the
military, in the army, if I max my PT tests, if I
did my job properly, I could progress, and it didn't matter what the
other other NCOs were going. I was not competing with them, And now
I was, to some degree, I was competing for a particular job.
But if I did everything right, I was going to get that job,
no questions. You know it would happen. It just does not happen that
way. In the music there's so many factors in the music industry that are
out of our control. I can write a hit song and I can sing
it and everybody goes it's the greatest vocals you've ever done. And it can
be a great song. The production can be fabulous, the label can love
it, and we can deliver it to country radio, and they cannot play
it, and the consumer cannot hear it, and that song not be a
hit, even though we all know it's a hit song. Certain factors take
place that alleviate you from the process of being successful with that particular song.
Now, fortunately for me, I had a lot of hit songs I have
over my career and we still have success. And with the changes in our
society now technology in particular, with the influx of all the social media platforms,
uh, there's new avenues for us to do that. And we found
during COVID, during the shutdown during the pandemic that it created a whole new
a whole new avenue for a generation that had kind of country radio was no
longer a part of their career, you know. Again, fortunately for me,
I had such a big radio career that I get I got to continue
touring. I you know, we still have a successful touring business, but
not quite as much new airplay on radio. They're not playing all of my
new music as much. But cause of these new the influx of the social
media platforms and the Spotify and iTunes and all of these things, it's as
if that you know, we kind of transition from one streaming method to another,
from traditional radio and CDs and all of those things now to these other
platforms where our music is being heard, and there are actually artists that are
coming into the industry that are starting there. They're not starting in country through
country radio. The people are hearing their music through those platforms now. One
of the interesting things, of course, is that while you've decided to pursue
your music career in the late nineties, most of your career has taken place
while America has been at war. Yeah, and one of the stories that
absolutely resonated with me is how one of your songs came on the radio when
a soldier or veteran was very seriously thinking about taking his life and your song
made him stop. Yeah. I've heard so many of those stories, and
I mean, it's very it's moving. Uh. It's those kind of stories
that make me really appreciate the magnitude of what it is we are doing and
the impact that we can have. And I when I speak, and I
do a lot of speaking in engagements, I tell people you never know what
your life or words or whatever it is you may be doing. You don't
know how they're going to impact other people. So you should every day.
We should think about that when we get up, before we go to work.
We should think about how we can be a positive impression on other people.
Uh, and don't allow our our wur situations to dictate our output.
Uh. You can turn you can turn it around. That that particular story,
Uh, it was actually a two part which was beyond belief. Really
that young man. I'll never forget it. We've played the Washington State Fair
and he had a prosthetic leg and he was standing there and I had gone
I just released the new album at the time, and so I was signing
them. You know, when you first start, you're willing to sign anything
just to sell it, you know. And so we would do signings of
merchandise after the show. And at this point we've kind of gotten away from
signing merchandise. But because I released a new album, everybody that bought it,
I was gonna come out and sign the record. So we had this
huge line, and you know, we're sitting there and I'm like, this
is gonna take hours, But how awesome is that that I get to set
here for hours and sign autograph. But I looked over and I seen that
young land stand there with this prosthetic leg, and I said, come on
up, you don't need to you don't have to stand there and wait.
I you know, gathered in my head. I assumed he was a soldier
and he said no. He said, I want to I I need to
talk to you. I want to talk to you. If you don't mind,
I'll wait till we're done. And so I told him my tour man,
the said get him a chair anyway, he don't need to stand here
the whole time. Then Winn't got him a chair, and he would not
sit down. He stood there the whole time, and he waited till the
very end. It was almost almost two hours of signing, and he waited.
And when he came up, he sat down in front of me and
I said, sit down, and I want to hear what it is so
important that you were willing to stand that and wait for two hours? He
said, Man, I was in Iraq and such and such, and I
was driving down the road and I had a CD player and I had your
first CD and I was playing it and he said, this song Paradise.
He said, I just loved it. And he said, uh, he
said, your music saved my life. I said, okay, won't tell
me out and I literally giggled. You know, I'm like, yeah,
tell me how my music saved life. He said. We were driving down
the road in the hun V and that and he said, my it we
bumped and my and it skipped and he said, so I reached down to
get the CD player and to hit the button to go back to the beginning
song, and a sniper shot through the window and hit the seat and it's
like, oh wow that. I said, well, that wasn't me,
that was God looking after you. He said, well, God used you,
and he said he used you again. He said, fast forward.
I got out. I had lost my leg and I d and uh.
He said. I was sitting at the house and he said, I literally
had the pistol and I had put the magazine and chambered around and I put
it up to my mouth and he said, I was going through this and
I was thinking, this is the only way that I can end this pain,
and everything was to do this. And he said a song came on
the radio called almost Home. He said, I put my gun down.
That's powerful. And we both sat there and cried and talked for a bit,
and uh, it's like, man, you know, I said,
Well, here again, I said, I appreciate that you're sharing this,
and it does mean a lot, I said, But what it really means
is that God was looking after you and he cares, So don't do that
crap again. But yeah, it's pretty powerful to hear those stories, and
I've heard a bunch of them. Incredible impact. We're just about at a
time, Craig, but I know you've got some special breaking news for us.
Yeah. So then the military, obviously, it has been a big
part of my life. My God, my family, my country, and
it's literally in that order those the three priorities in my life. And having
served for you know, just over seventeen years of my life, I'm always
looking at ways to work with and give back. So here in the very
near future, I am re enlisting in the Army. I am going back
in the Army. I am going back in the army. Fantastic. I've
had a great music career and now I have the opportunity to utilize that platform
to help promote the importance of our military and our army in particular, and
work with army and the army recruiting command and the Army Band and anything that
I can do to try to encourage people to join the United States Army and
be all they can be. That that has been my platform since I joined
the Army. I have spent my life attempting to be all that I can
be. People joke about it. I raced motorcycles, I've raced cars,
I've jumped out of airplanes. I've done it both in the military and in
the vilion life, and everything that I have ever done, I've tried to
do it to the best of my ability, and as I talked about earlier,
not do it to the best or be better than someone else, but
just be the best me that I can be at everything that I'm doing.
And the Army is going back to the be all you can beat campaign,
which I think is absolutely the greatest thing they've done. Since I've been in
and out this Army of one and this all this other crap, I think
it is horrible. We all individually, when we are being all that we
can be, collectively, we will be the greatest. And I get to
be a part of that. Again. Outstanding Craig, Thanks for breaking that
news with us, and thank you so much for your time today, and
thank you for your service. And you're soon to be continuing service to our
country. Oh, thank you, Craig Morgan, country music star. But
before that, Craig Morgan Greer seventeen years and soon to be more than that
in the US Army, more than ten of those years on active duty.
We also served with the one hundred first and eighty second Airborne Divisions. I'm
Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus,
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center.
For more information, please visit American Veterans Center dot org. You can
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