Our Veterans, Our Stories Podcast

Rick Opperman United States Army Veteran

Welcome to the Our Veterans, Our Stories podcast with the Hancock County Veterans Service Office. This is where we give our local veterans an opportunity to share their stories with our community and beyond. There is a real brotherhood among all vets, and it will be great to help others to know their stories about serving our country. And it gives us an opportunity to introduce the community to our team at the Hancock County Veterans Service Office, so people can learn a little bit more about what we do and how we can help. Welcome to today’s episode of Our Veterans, Our Stories.

0:00:00

(Speaker 1)

Welcome to the Our Veterans, Our Stories podcast with the Hancock County Veterans Service Office. This is where we give our local veterans an opportunity to share their stories with our community and beyond. There is a real brotherhood among all vets, and it will be great to help others to know their stories about serving our country. And it gives us an opportunity to introduce the community to our team at the Hancock County Veterans Service Office, so people can learn a little bit more about what we do and how we can help. Welcome back for today’s episode of our podcast, Our Veterans, Our Stories. Today we have Rick Opperman and he was in the Army and so I’m going to be interviewing Rick today.

0:00:39

(Speaker 1)

So Rick, how are you doing today? I’m doing well, Toby. How are you? I’m good. Thank you very much. Thank you for being out here today with us.

0:00:45

(Speaker 1)

Thank you for asking. Anytime. So first, tell me a little bit about yourself as far as where you’re from, where you grew up, and a little bit of the early life of Rick. Born and raised right here in Finley, Ohio. Graduated from high school in 1970, Finley High School. We had 695 kids in my graduating class.

0:01:08

(Speaker 1)

Other than that, I was pretty much, the only time I’ve been away is when I was in the military. Okay. Any siblings? I have an older sister who lives in North Carolina. younger sister who lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, and then my brother lives here in town. Okay.

0:01:25

(Speaker 1)

So growing up here in Finley, what kind of things did you like to do? Anything I could do that got me in trouble. Okay, that’s fair. Fair enough. So did you join the military, the army, right after high school or how did that work out? I actually worked at Dow Chemical for a year after I graduated from high school and I had two high school friends that we were all going to join the military together and we were going to go over to Vietnam and we were going to kill some enemy soldiers.

0:01:58

(Speaker 1)

So yeah. Okay, so you joined. Did they end up joining? One of the two did and then he eventually became my younger sister’s husband. Oh. And he made a military career.

0:02:08

(Speaker 1)

He was a 28 year army veteran. Oh awesome. Yeah. Well good for him. Yep. So talk to me about your military service and like what was it that made you want to join the military?

0:02:19

(Speaker 1)

Truth. Yes, truth. Absolutely. My father and I did not have a good relationship, especially in my teenage years, and he made it known to me through the pastor of our church that he had made it public that I wasn’t quote -unquote man enough to join the military. So the very next day I went down and volunteered for the draft. Wow.

0:02:40

(Speaker 1)

So I showed my old man that I was man enough. Okay, okay. So obviously you answer what you want to answer. Do you think Do you think you would have still ended up joining had that not made it back to you? I would have been drafted at that point. My draft number was low enough that I would have been drafted.

0:02:59

(Speaker 1)

So yes, I probably for sure ended up in Vietnam. Wow, okay. So then you joined the Army. What did you do in the Army? How long were you in? What years?

0:03:10

(Speaker 1)

I was in from 1971 to 1974. I was a military police officer with the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. So what all did you get to experience during that time? Well, if you want to start with basic, my very first day of basic, I was dropped for pushups by a drill instructor because I had lost the lock off my duffel bag and I didn’t realize it. And he came up to meet me up on the second floor of the barracks we were staying in. He goes, which one of you soldiers lost the padlock off of your duffel bag?

0:03:42

(Speaker 1)

And I said, that’s probably mine. He says, come here, soldier. So I walked up to him and he says, you need to understand you’re going to address me as drill sergeant going forward. Is that clear? I said, yes, drill sergeant. He says, drop it and give me 10.

0:03:54

(Speaker 1)

So I dropped it. and started doing push -ups. And that saying of, I can’t hear you, is real. Because he said, I can’t hear you. So I counted back up and did 10 more for him. He left me in the leading rest position, and then he says, are you going to forgive who I am?

0:04:09

(Speaker 1)

And I said, no, drill sergeant, I’m not. He says, do you think that you can do 10 more for me? And I said, yes, sir, I think I can. So I knock out another 10, and then he gave me permission to recover and give me back my lot. So from that day forward, if that particular drill instructor was the charge of quarters, I was his runner. And the 101st Airborne was coming back from Vietnam at that time, and they were going to take over the barracks that we were currently in.

0:04:35

(Speaker 1)

And so we had to move a different set of barracks. So I was pulled out of any non -essential training while I was in basic training. And I went down and helped set up our new set of barracks, painting it, setting up lockers and so on. So that was basic training. And from there I went to Fort Gordon, Georgia. And again, that’s the military police AIT.

0:04:56

(Speaker 1)

The biggest thing that I had there that was of interest to me was I had never fired a pistol before. So they gave us, we were on the range firing the M1911, which is 45 caliber semi -automatic. And I put nine out of 10 rounds in the bullseye. And the 10th went just outside of the bullseye. And the range officer comes over and says, soldier, you ever fired this weapon before? I said, no, sir, I’ve never picked it up.

0:05:21

(Speaker 1)

He says, let me see it. So I cleared it and gave it to him. And he popped one round off and said, wow, I can’t believe as many years as this weapon’s been around that it fires that well. So he said, you must be a very, very good marksman. So I said, well, thank you. So yeah.

0:05:38

(Speaker 1)

So that was basic in AIT. And then was jump school. Okay, what did you think of that? Jump School was cold. We were down there in December of 71. and we had cold showers.

0:05:53

(Speaker 1)

They did not have the boilers turned on for us. We had cold showers in the barracks, and the first five jumps that I did were probably the best five jumps that I had out of the 15 that I did while I was in the service, simply because of the fact that there was a black hat on the ground that would talk to you through a megaphone so that you could understand if you needed to slip right or slip left in order to change the position of your parachute. So you said 15 jumps you did? Yeah I had 15 jumps. Do any of those 15 stand out in your mind like that was my best jump? I know you said the first five were How about my worst jump?

0:06:30

(Speaker 1)

Okay, yeah, let’s talk about that then. My worst jump was the first time I ever jumped out of a Huey helicopter. As a matter of fact, it was the only time I ever jumped out of a Huey helicopter. Typically, they do three men to a side when you’re doing a jump like that. Well, this particular weekend, they wanted to jump more people, so they were putting four guys to a side. Well, I was sitting beside a great big Lifer, Master Sergeant, and when he exited the helicopter, because you actually just put your hands down and push yourself off, he actually pulled me out of the helicopter with him.

0:07:01

(Speaker 1)

It’s the first time I ever opened my eyes when I was doing a jump, and I’m glad that I did because I actually pushed off the skids of the helicopter. And the gentleman who came out after me was another MP. And he ended up below me, and I was concerned about him robbing my air out of my parachute, because we were that close together. So as we’re going into the ground, I’m watching him instead of me. And I went into the ground flat -footed and locked knee. And I drove everything in my hips up to the middle of my back.

0:07:31

(Speaker 1)

So I laid there for a little while. And he came over, and he wanted to make sure I was all right. And I said, yeah, just help me get my parachute wrapped up, and we’ll put it in the kit bag. And I walked off the drop zone. So yeah. OK.

0:07:41

(Speaker 1)

So that was your worst of the 15? Yes. Yes, that was my worst jump, yeah. Other than that, it was C -130 and C -141 transport aircraft, so yeah. Okay. Yep, yep.

0:07:52

(Speaker 1)

So after jump school, where did you go from there? Then I went to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and I was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina from January of 1972 to July of 1974. Okay, and during that time, what all did you do? Well, of course, you use the normal police stuff, which is traffic tickets and traffic control. But I had three separate incidents while I was on patrol that have always stuck with me. The first one, was at that point in time, you could actually go through an unsecured vehicle.

0:08:28

(Speaker 1)

And my partner and I, we were on an afternoon patrol, and we were going through a parking lot, come upon this car that was not locked, and in the back seat was a four -pound bag of cut marijuana. So we confiscated the marijuana. That was one fun thing that I did. The second one was, again, had to do with marijuana. They had guards in the parking lots for Bragg at nighttime. So we were going through the parking lot, trying to find the guard, found him at the back of the parking lot sitting in a car.

0:09:04

(Speaker 1)

And while he was sitting in the car, we’re kind of like, eh, you know, he’s supposed to be out patrolling. And so we stopped and we’re asking for his ID and asking for the vehicle registration. So he pops the glove box open and a little 35 millimeter film canister falls out of the glove box. And he grabbed it. I said, let me see that canister. He pops it open.

0:09:26

(Speaker 1)

He looks at it, chucks it over the hill. So we immediately put him in the search position. And while we’re searching him, we find he’s got an ounce in his left front pocket. So we handcuffed him and charged him with possession. Then, because the vehicle was not his, it belonged to another soldier that he was just sitting in, we actually hauled that soldier down, because we impounded his car, since we found 16 more ounces underneath the driver’s seat and a half -pound brick of hashish in the trunk. So we charged that gentleman, after impounding his car, with possession with intent to distribute.

0:10:02

(Speaker 1)

But I suppose the most fun thing that I had was coming back in an evening patrol. My partner and I had gone out to the drop zones, and on the way back into the division area, we came across this 49 Chevy that was headed our way. And you could see the passenger looked like an adult, but on the driver’s side, it was like looking through the steering wheel just over the top of the dash. So we drove on by, and I told my partner, I said, we need to go back there and check this out. So we flipped around and went back, flipped on the lights. and called in the license number.

0:10:37

(Speaker 1)

And at that point in time, I don’t know if they still are or not, but officer’s decals were blue. And this particular officer’s decal was blue with one star. Okay. So I’m kind of like, okay, look here, we just pulled over a one -star general. Yes, you did. Yeah.

0:10:54

(Speaker 1)

So got out of the car, walked up, introduced myself as Sgt. Opperman, 82nd Military Police. And I said, I’d like to see your driver’s license and vehicle registration. And of course, the kid doesn’t have anything, so the general gets out all his ID and whatnot. And I said, sir, I don’t understand. He said, how old is this young man? I said, well, he’s my son and he’s 14.

0:11:15

(Speaker 1)

And I said, so you’re telling me that you knowingly allowed an unlicensed operator to operate this motor vehicle. He said, well, I don’t know. He said, I’m not sure you can really prove that. And I said, well, sir, I don’t see a gun to your head. So we ended up issuing him a citation. and then took him back and filled out the rest of the reports, which they just happened to bring back.

0:11:35

(Speaker 1)

me if you’d be interested in seeing it. Is that right? Yeah, I wanted to make a copy of that because the gentleman actually ended up being the 82nd Airborne 2nd Command. His name was Joseph L. Fant, Brigadier General Joseph L. Fant. You can actually Google him because I’ve Googled him before on my phone. Yeah, he’s one of your memories from this time here, and that’s awesome.

0:11:58

(Speaker 1)

So, When did you leave Fort Bragg then? July of 1974. July 1974. Yep. And so where did you go after that? I came back here to town.

0:12:10

(Speaker 1)

Okay. I was married at the time. I got married while I was in the service. Okay. Came back to town and within three weeks of getting out of the military, I was hired at a company called Owens Illinois, which is now called Graham Packaging out on the other side of I -75. I was the fifth person that they hired.

0:12:27

(Speaker 1)

because it was a brand new plant, and spent 40 years with them doing various jobs. I spent 20 years on the shop floor in different positions, most of it working in the warehouse. And then after that, they fired a guy, and they walked out to me on a Wednesday afternoon and said, you start your new job tomorrow. I’m like, okay. So I went from being a 20 -year hourly employee to being a mid -management employee, like overnight. I had no computer experience.

0:12:53

(Speaker 1)

I had no contacts since they fired the guy that I took his place with. I spent 20 years in with them, so I had a total of 40 years with Grand Packaging. Okay, so when did you finish up with Grand Packaging? 2014. 2014, okay. Your story to me is very fascinating for so many different reasons.

0:13:14

(Speaker 1)

One thing though, what would you say for Anybody looking at going to the military right now because I I want to talk about your military a little bit You got so much more to you that I want to talk about but if somebody were to join you military right now, what would you say, positive or negative, I guess for you, that you took and you would say to them if they were thinking about joining? I think that the military helps you grow up, especially if you’re in a position where I was with my father from the standpoint of the fact that I felt very belittled when I was around my dad. He did not make me, he was not proud of me. Never, never, never in all of the years that that man was alive did he ever tell me he loved me. And so I think that the military is a good place to go for kids who are looking for some direction.

0:14:04

(Speaker 1)

The thing that concerns me now is the number of deployments that you younger folks, you know, you’re out going three, four or five times to the Middle East and you deal with PTSD. Not to say, of course, the guys during the Vietnam era didn’t, but I was very fortunate from the standpoint of the fact that I was never in a combat zone. Yep. Thank you for sharing that. Yep. So you bring up about your relationship with your dad.

0:14:29

(Speaker 1)

Yep. And so how many kids do you have? I have two. I have a son who is 50, will turn 50 next March, and then I have a daughter who will be 45 in April. Do you think the relationship you had with your dad helped you kind of guide your relationship with your kids? Oh, absolutely.

0:14:51

(Speaker 1)

Do you mind sharing a little bit on how you think? Well, back in the day when I was growing up, it was just post -World War II, because I was born in 1952. And so guys at that point, fathers at that point, was like, well, if we can beat you with a rod, we’ll beat you with the rod. I never had to spank my children. because they knew just from the tone of my voice that if dad spoke, we listened. So I was able to break that chain of the physical

0:15:25

(Speaker 1)

abuse, which is what they would call it nowadays. I mean, they used to use a razor strap on us, a yardstick, turn us over their knee and spank us. So a lot of people may not know this about you, but you and your son do something that I consider awesome, amazing, so many other words I can use for it. Could you share a little bit about what you and your son do? Well, my son and a college roommate decided when they were in college, of course, that they were going to hike all 50 states. Well, then that college roommate ended up getting married.

0:15:59

(Speaker 1)

And so in 2006, my son said, hey, Daddy, you’re not married. So I’m not married. Why don’t we would you consider going with me on these trips? And I said, absolutely. So for the last 20 years, He and I have done a yearly father -and -son road trip throughout the United States to see some of the different national parks and other areas. Our last trip was just to Alaska.

0:16:21

(Speaker 1)

We went up there and spent six days up in Alaska and did a seven -mile hike on our first day out. We did some sea kayaking. We did some glacier trekking. So, yeah. Out of the 20 years, what do you think, how’s that been between you and your son building that relationship? It’s been fantastic, because we went to Washington three years ago, and the guide that was there with us at that point in time, because that particular trip had to be guided, was a guided tour, said, Ricky, what’s your take on this trip?

0:16:55

(Speaker 1)

And I said, you want the truth again? And I like the truth thing. I said, just the honor of being here and sharing this opportunity with my son. Because had he not asked me to come on to these trips with him, I’d still be stuck in my little corner in Northwest Ohio. So I wouldn’t have seen the United States in the manner that I’ve been able to see it. Out of the 20 years, what would you say is probably your most memorable trip?

0:17:21

(Speaker 1)

you and him have went on? They are all memorable, only from the standpoint of the fact that, again, there’s places that I never would have seen. I think Yosemite. with its waterfalls and El Cap and Half Dome would probably be someplace that I’d like to go back. Big Bend, Texas was fantastic. Our first Father and Son road trip was actually the UP of Michigan.

0:17:43

(Speaker 1)

We went up there and visited 13 different lighthouses while we were up there. So yeah, and our next trip is coming in March, which is earlier than we normally do, because normally we wait until August or September, but my son turns 50 on the 18th of March, and he wants to do his 50th state on his 50th birthday. So we’re going to Hawaii. Hawaii. So what’s the plan in Hawaii, then? Where are you guys going to go?

0:18:07

(Speaker 1)

Well, we’re going to fly into Honolulu, and then he’s going to take me to see the Arizona, and then we’re going to fly from Honolulu over to Maui, and then we’re going to spend six days in Maui, how much hiking we’re going to do. At this point, I don’t know because unfortunately, he plans all this stuff out. Dad just kind of gets to tag along. Okay, that’s fair. So, we see you quite often at a lot of the events that our office, the Hancock County Veterans Service Office has. We love seeing all the veterans.

0:18:36

(Speaker 1)

We love seeing you out to all those. Is there anything specific that makes you want to come out to those events or is it like what is it that brings you out there? Just basically the information that’s provided because there’s so many things that veterans have the opportunity to take part of or be part in and they don’t realize it unless they come out and see what those opportunities actually are. So in this this last one that we just had I was actually out and I’m a member of the life member of the DAV And so I actually got to sign up my very first veteran to the DAV. So yeah, yeah. So you also, I believe you’ve used several of our different resources that we have within our office.

0:19:27

(Speaker 1)

Is there any of those that you would like to share that you’ve used? you know, meant anything to you? Well, they helped me be able to get my DDT form 214 turned in, make sure that it was recorded properly so that I could get my veteran’s ID card. And in 2021, I had an experience where my daughter and her husband and my two granddaughters moved to Florida. And that pretty much tore me up emotionally. because I was looking to see my granddaughter’s graduate from high school.

0:19:58

(Speaker 1)

Now, not that I can’t fly to Florida and see it, but they were also originally here in Findlay. So, that was a difficult time for me, and at that point in time, I reached out to Ed Newton and to Nicole Coleman, and they got me involved with Veterans Discovering New Life. And so, I’ve been going to Veterans Discovering New Life for the last four years, and I really enjoy that group of people. We get along, have a lot of nice conversations. As a matter of fact, coming up in two weeks, we’re gonna have, well actually, it’ll be a week from this coming Monday, a week from tomorrow, we’re gonna have a little Christmas get -together. Good.

0:20:30

(Speaker 1)

Well, we definitely appreciate your time here. And before we finish up, though, I’ve got to ask, and I don’t know when this podcast will air, but I wanted to get your take on the Army -Navy game from yesterday, if you had a chance to watch that at all. I did, in fact, watch it, and I was disappointed that the Army, of course, lost. But when you don’t ever two fumbles and you throw an interception, You know, you just beat yourself. Yeah, that’ll do. That’ll happen.

0:21:00

(Speaker 1)

Well, again, thank you very much for coming out here. Is there anything that you’d like to add? I believe so at this point. No, thank you. Thanks again for coming out here. being with us on our podcast today.

0:21:11

(Speaker 1)

I appreciate that, thank you.