Jackson, Anthony. Interview March 7, 2023.

Sean Visintainer:

Hello, this is Sean Visintainer, and I'm interviewing Major General Anthony

Jackson for the California State University San Marcos University Library

Special Collections Oral History initiative. Today is March 7th, 2023, and this

interview is taking place at the University Library. Major General Jackson,

thank you for interviewing with us today.

Anthony Jackson:

Yeah, you're welcome. It's a, it's a privilege, kind of a, an honor, I guess I

should say.

Visintainer:

These are, uh, the favorite part of my job that I get to do. So it's a real

pleasure to have you. I forgot to mention that I will take some notes as we're

interviewing, just so you know.

Jackson:

Sure.

Visintainer:

So I can circle back to questions if I have them.

Jackson:

All right.

Visintainer:

Uh, things like that. And I wanted to just start off by asking you about your

childhood and your formative years.

Jackson:

Yeah.

Visintainer:

Um, where were you born?

Jackson:

I was born at Madigan General Hospital in Fort Lewis, Washington. My father was

a career soldier. So I was the fourth of his children. Uh, let's see. And being

a military brat, you grow up in a lot of different places. But, uh, yeah, my

dad, uh, he lied about his age and lied about his parentage to join the army

shortly after Pearl Harbor. He met his, my mother in, May of [19]42, and married

her in June of the same year. And then he went overseas to Europe for, for three

years. In those days they went for the duration and came home to see my, uh,

oldest sister was three years old when he got home.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

And then, my older brother was born in [19]46, and then Matt, and then Don was

born in [19]48, and then I was born in [19]49, and the Korean War broke out so

my mother got a break.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And dad came home in [19]52, and Clay was born in [19]53. And 00:02:00then Dana

was born in, uh, [19]56, and Tawnya was born in [19]57. I guess they're Irish

twins. And that was the last of the kids. But if you notice, I was seven. The

girls, Betty is the oldest, and Tanya the youngest. And then there's five boys,

and I'm the top dead-center.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

Uh, and, uh, highly competitive sports-oriented family with the boys. And, uh, I

guess I should say that the main thing in that growing up was, I was kind of

taking notes and reviewing my own life a couple weeks ago; that I started school

in Germany, did kindergarten and first grade in Germany, and then my dad got

stationed in Los Angeles. So I, uh, spent the second grade

in Los Angeles. Then I spent the third grade-- He got sent someplace else, spent

the third grade in Houston, Texas, his hometown. And then I spent four through

the seventh grade in Colorado at two different schools. And then back to Texas

for the eighth. And then in the middle of the ninth grade, a couple

months into the ninth grade, we moved to California in 1963 as uh, and all my

teachers in Texas were excited. I was going to such a great state for academics.

And so I got here in October [19]63 as a ninth grader, as the brand new kid

talking funny, dressing, funny and--

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Fighting my way through the ninth grade. But, so I was fortunate to go to high

school in Oakland. You know that they have three-year high school. So all my

high school years, I was the first of my brothers and sisters. If you'll see

those days, you'll see that they got ripped off and didn't go to one

single high school, my older one. So 00:04:00I was the first one that kind of got

planted at one place.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And then, um, and that was really good because counselors and everybody started

prepping me for college. Uh, Mrs. [Phyllis] Collier wouldn't let me go. She

constantly -- she was my counselor -- constantly tried to get me into college

prep classes, which she did, and make me take the SATs. You're not going to the

state wrestling finals unless you take the SATs. And, uh, and that was a good

experience. Yeah. Football became my, uh, my great love of sports, although

played a lot of baseball, basketball, and all those kinds of things, wrestled in

high school. But I got a football scholarship, offered several scholarships. I

was lucky to be... I was born at exactly the right time. You know, the high, the

civil rights movement, the, all the sacrifices of so many people during the

Civil Rights Movement. When I graduated from high school in 1967, universities

were looking for me in terms of race, in terms of athleticism, in terms of

grades and SATs.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And I just happened to be born at that exact right juncture of the civil rights

movement and who could get that young African American into the university. But

I took a football scholarship, because I knew that was just based on

pure athleticism or whatever.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

But it was still important. That was, the doors were opening wide, and I just

happened to be the right age, born at right time as well. So that was my kind of

through high school, uh, living in a lot of different places. Three years in

Germany, four years in Colorado, off and on in Texas. 00:06:00And so, um, with mom and

dad always providing a good solid family basis, and my mother was incredibly,

like, I still look back and, you know here I was a high-ranking officer,

[inaudible] and having two kids was expensive. Here my dad was a

sergeant in the army, not an officer.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And he, and somehow she managed to put together great meals that we were all

healthy and athletic and all that. And I still wonder how she did it. It was

pretty-- she was pretty fantastic. She sewed our clothes and did all kinds of

things that, you know sometimes I see the kids walking around here with patches

and torn jeans and all that.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

That would've been so embarrassing for my family. We were, we were

poor, you know, and here these kids, I guess middle class kids that,

that wanted to look like that.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

We would've been totally embarrassed. And mom would sew up those torn spots.

Visintainer:

You said she was, uh, she managed to make great meals for everybody in your family.

Jackson:

Yeah.

Visintainer:

I was curious, is there a, is there a, a particular meal or food that really

evokes memories of your childhood?

Jackson:

I would say that we ate a lot of cooked cereal.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

You know, things like cornmeal and oatmeal and grits and yeah. And, um, it was

because it was inexpensive and filled with nutrition.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

I presume and it filled you up, you know? And so, uh, yeah. And you never turned

your back on your plate.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Spaghetti and meatballs, you turn your back. One of those meatballs was

gonna be missing you know. I mean, you never missed dinner. You never

missed a meal. You were always home. You didn't wear a watch. You didn't have a

watch, but you knew what dinnertime was.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And you knew, you knew that, uh, you know, to be home for 00:08:00dinner. Um, so my

mother was a, just a great cook. And, uh, and I just remember that there was

always a meal, uh, sometimes they were pretty creative.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Like, she would make syrup out of, uh, out of sugar and water, and she'd just

melt it down. And that would be the syrup for your pancakes.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You know, she didn't, orange juice, you know, if the can said "mix three cans of

water with this," she'd probably mix four, four or five you know, stretching

things out. She could do that. But, uh... Man, she-- Yeah, you would never turn

down one of her meals. I would just say that, uh, everything she cooked was

worthy of eating.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Except turnips.

Visintainer:

So that was the, that was the vegetable. That was--

Jackson:

Yeah, that was the one. I mean I liked all the other green vegetables and stuff

like that. But I never really, I was kind of amazed when I was being recruited.

I was being recruited to play football at UC [University of California]

Berkeley. And, um, they brought me into the Bear's Lair, Bear's Lair, their kind

of campus restaurant. And they put a salad in front of me, a green salad with

just lettuce--

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And I said, what , what am I supposed to do with this?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Because I'd never had a lettuce salad that I could ever have recalled. So I had

to watch, uh what the coaches who were recruiting me were doing with that 'cause our meals were substantial. And [inaudible] they were designed

to fill you up, you know?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

As a kid more than anything. Yeah.

Visintainer:

Did, uh, did you live on bases?

Jackson:

Yeah. We s-- you know, um... We, we, we lived on and off base. The military, it

wasn't until my time in the military, the military 00:10:00used to be when you got

stationed overseas, families had to move off the base housing.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And it was in my times in, I think in the, uh, I want to say in the 1980s, that

even though your, uh, spouse was overseas, you could stay on base, uh, at least

in the Marine Corps. But we lived, um, sometimes we'd stay a while with

relatives. But my mother was from Salt Lake City, Utah. And so we would

sometimes stage there for a couple months before we went overseas or before we

went to California or something like that. And, but, let's see, on-- in Germany,

yeah, all that time was on military base. Colorado was four years on military

base. Oakland, the first couple of years we lived on a military base, but my dad

also kept a little home in Houston, Texas. And a couple of times we would move

into that house. And uh, but when he retired from the Army when I was a senior

in high school, he bought a home in Oakland.

Visintainer:

Okay.

Jackson:

And that was my senior year so that was the first year I had moved up in the

pecking order to get a bedroom by myself. 'Cause we usually lived in a

three-bedroom house, one [bedroom] for mom and dad, one for the two girls and

then the last one, was either for my older brother, if it was small.

And we, like in Colorado the older brother had a room, and then the four younger

ones slept in the basement.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

In bunk beds, right?

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And then finally when I was a senior, I got a room to myself for a few months

when, you know, so, um--But we settled, the family settled in Oakland.

And that's where my mother and father lived until they passed away. And, uh,

they-- so it was, uh, the military bases are sort of protected in some ways from--

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

A little bit different than society, you know. And then even as I went through

my career, we stayed on 00:12:00bases sometimes. Not always.

Visintainer:

Uh, you said that the military bases are protected and different from society.

Jackson:

Yeah. Its-- They're, they're a little bit different--

Visintainer:

Could you explain--

Jackson:

Because first of all, I'll never forget, like when we were stationed in Hawaii,

and my kids were like six months old when we got there, and two years old. So

they were pretty young. But by the time they were there, we were there for a

year or two. The military police knew where your kids belong. They knew what

house. If they saw your kid running amuck someplace, "Yeah, maybe you had to go

back to your yard," you know, because-- And so from that standpoint, and

military police are a different sort of presence. They're more like the old

neighborhood police officers. They're Marines essentially. And now they have

some civilians that do that on military bases. The other thing is: all your

neighbors, you're all in the same boat. You know, you're gonna say,

although, you know, you have sometimes segregated housing based on rank. Um, um,

and they [military bases] have their elementary school, they have their grocery

stores. They have their equivalent of a Walmart or 7-Eleven. They have their gas

stations, their fire department, the hospital. So you have a city, literally, or

maybe even several towns, like as big as Camp Pendleton is, there are several

schools in like the northern part. Once you get to high school, uh, and junior

high, you go to San Clemente Public Schools.

Visintainer:

Okay.

Jackson:

On the, on the eastern side, where I lived on the base, or southeastern side,

you go to Fallbrook schools and on the south side of the base, you go to Ocean--

your kids go to Oceanside schools. So, uh, but, um, everybody's employed, you know?

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

There is a hierarchy, you know. If you're-- 00:14:00That is respected. Kids stop when

they're hearing the national anthem is being played every morning at eight

o'clock. If they're at the playground in the morning at eight o'clock, or when

the flag's coming down in the evening at sunset, they'll stop. And you'll see

kindergarteners stand in position of attention, while getting off the swings and

the teeter-totter or whatever they call them now. And uh, it's kind of unique.

Even my Great Dane used to know to stop and sit when the national anthem was

being played, you know, just-- So it's a, and race is erased. Mostly. I

mean we're all a product of American society.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Um, um, and it's more, I would say it's more of a meritocracy in terms of what

you experience and how you experience, and your rank and your uniform

automatically entitles you to X amount of respect. And everybody rec-- and that

includes the general has to respect the most junior person, you know. And so uh,

you're somewhat protected and there's rules that are, that are pretty strict,

you know? And even the, even the nurses in the emergency room got to know my

sons.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

"Hey, Brian, what are you in here for this time?" You know. He's a

skateboarder. Bashed his skull, skinned his face, you know, all of that stuff.

And they know him. "Uh, okay. You're a Jackson kid. All right. Okay."

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm. Do you, do you think that that experience was similar for your father?

Jackson:

No my dad, he lived a whole different world.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

He's one of the stage setters. When he, when he was 17 years old, trying to get

into the military in 1942, Marines didn't accept Blacks into the military. It

wasn't until a year 00:16:00later, you know. And he lived in Texas, you know, grew up in

Texas. And in his youth and for a long time, even through a portion of my youth,

Texas was one of the most violent places to be African American. I mean I had a,

I had one of my Marines, a master gunnery sergeant, a very senior enlisted

Marine, who was my senior enlisted advisor. And he's a Texan, African American.

And his father was lynched in Texas. And so what's your, um-- You know, so

there's, there's, there's only a generation or two that separates you from that

kind of conduct.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And when my dad joined the Army, it was segregated. Matter of fact, he was

stationed at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, 'cause that's where one of the last

of the Buffalo Soldiers were stationed at, at, at, um, even at the turn of the

19th to the 20th century, the Buffalo Soldiers had been stationed at Fort

Douglas in Salt Lake City. And so when they started bringing in African

Americans into the US Army for World War II, that became a place where they

trained. And so they didn't have a USO [United Service Organization], they had a

USO for white soldiers, but they didn't even have a USO for Black soldiers. So

in creating a USO for Black soldiers, now they recruited my mother, you

know, to be one of the hostesses. And that's how they met. And within two weeks

they were married. Geez.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And they stayed married, you know. Um, so. And dad, I am sure when I see, you

know, I think he was extraordinarily smart, extraordinarily clever. And you had

to be more clever to 00:18:00survive, I think, in those days, because there were a lot

of racial booby traps that you could walk into. And I think that, um, I don't

know all of the history of that, but he should have been, with the number of

years he spent in, 24 years, he should have been a higher rank in most

circumstances. And I won't recall what the family's story is as to why, but I

have pictures of him at a higher rank.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And then he retired at another rank, lowered, 10 years later, you know. So he

was, so there was an incident that occurred, I think, with my older brother,

Matt. And he was, an officer had bumped him on his bicycle and knocked him to

the ground and knocked a tooth out, and when my dad was called to the scene,

this is more family lore, the officer used the N-word in referring to my, my

brother. And the officer was white, and my dad reflexively hit him. And he was a

master sergeant at the time. And, uh, this was when we lived in Germany. And my

dad was a prize fighter too. He was really good. At one time he was, uh, rated

in the world and he was an alternate on the 1948 Olympic team as a light

heavyweight. And, um, and so, uh... But the army liked him enough to keep him,

but they had to do something. And so he became reduced in rank by one and then

permanently put in that rank.

Jackson:

And he stayed in that rank for another, I want to say twelve years, which is not normal.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Even today or yesteryear, that wouldn't have been normal. So they liked him, but 00:20:00they [inaudible]. So he paid a price that I could-- I didn't pay. And when I

joined the Marine Corps, I'll never forget what him saying, "Why did

you want to join that redneck outfit?" Because remember, in [19]42, they

wouldn't take, they took a lot of, and it was [19]43, they had their first

[Black] officer, they had their first [Black] pilot in about 1950, first general

African American in 1981, Frank Petersen. So it's uh, it was kind of a, you

know, my, my my answer to him was, if not me, who? Somebody has to be.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

I was not the first but I was one of the few at the time that came in. And

General Petersen leading the way, of course. But yeah, dad had a different life.

Mom had a different life. She, I mean education, that was the key difference.

You know, is that I was fortunate my mother and father were both high school

grads and both of them believed in the power of education. So that was, I think

it was really vital to the development of all of us. And then coming to

California, which when I came here, it was the number one best school system,

public school system in the nation. And I don't know-- If I understand, it

doesn't rank very high now, but when I came here, the, you know, from the high

school to the community colleges, to the state colleges and state universities,

uh, it couldn't be better. So another lucky break for Tony Jackson.

Visintainer:

Yeah. Um, you mentioned your dad grew up in Texas.

Jackson:

Yeah.

Visintainer:

And he had kept a house there for quite a while.

Jackson:

Right.

Visintainer:

Was he particularly, uh, happy when he got stationed in Houston?

Jackson:

You know, 00:22:00that's something that I would've been too young. He was, he wasn't

stationed in Houston. He was stationed in another-- at, uh, Fort Hood, which is

outside [Houston]. I don't think that-- he never expressed that. And I was too

young if he, if he emoted it to my mother, you know? That was, that would've

been grown-up talk back in those days.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

But Houston was segregated. It was, the schools were segregated. It was kind of

ironic because I'd lived on army bases. I'd done most of my-- Up until the time

we moved to Texas, when I was in the third grade, I did kindergarten, first

grade in Germany at integrated school, at the military school on base. And then

we came out to California. But that was a short stay. But I did second grade in

integrated schools. Then all of a sudden, in third grade, I'm in this town and

the part of town where dad had a house, everybody's Black, the policeman's

Black, the pharm is Black, the teachers and principals, they're all Black. And

that was the first, you know, uh, 1958. And, uh, it was, uh, it was very

interesting. Corporal punishment. That's the first time I met that one too.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Where the teachers could paddle you? Yeah. You, they, they, they still did that.

I remember getting my hand paddled because my writing was so poor. Um,

but, um... So we moved there [Houston] because he did not want us probably to

live in the part of Texas where that base was, and close to relatives. He had a,

uh, his, his half-sister lived there, the aunt that helped raise him lived in

Houston. And so, and his father lived in Houston. And so, uh, we lived there

just a half mile or so from his sister and my aunt, Juanita. And so, uh... And

he never gave any indication 00:24:00that he wanted, um, wanted to live there

permanently in Houston. You know, I mean, the movie theaters, in those days, you

had to sit in the balcony, even the beaches were s-- you know, they had a rope.

This was for white people. This was for Black people. Don't cross the rope. The

drinking. I remember as a 13 year-old doing a sit-in, in the eighth grade, when

we moved back there the second time, the civil rights movement was pretty

churned up. And young people, high school, college were doing sit-ins at, uh, at

the drug stores that didn't allow you to sit at the soda fountains. You might be

able to buy something there, but don't sit down at the counter. And I remember

myself from a couple of my eighth and ninth grade buddies, we decided, we were

waiting for a bus, and we wanted a RC Cola and a moon pie.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And we walked into the local drugstore to buy 'em, and we decided we were gonna

sit at the lunch counter, like all these kids were doing around the nation. So

we did our little sit-in, and they, this big old guy comes out from somewhere in

the warehouse, and he's pounding on a billy club, like, "Hmm, what are you kids

doing?" But he didn't say anything to us, just the, the waitress behind the

counter. She was very nervous trying to get us to get up. And we looked over and

saw him and just waved. And then our bus came and we walked out. But it was our

little, that was our little act of defiance. And every now and then, you'd have

to say if not me who? And so we sat at a lunch counter for a while, you know.

Visintainer:

So I had seen it in another interview. You'd referenced this, uh, lunch counter

sit-in. Uh, didn't go into detail. And so I wanted to ask you a few questions

about it. So it was, uh, it was totally spontaneous? You were--

Jackson:

Yeah. It was spontaneous. We, it was, it was in the news. People were doing it

in Virginia, in Memphis, and, you know, and it was a, you knew there was a kind

of a hazard you could end up, 00:26:00you know, uh... in jail or something, you know.

But we just, I think there's been a couple of times where I've been involved in

civil rights protests, but where you just have to do something, you know. I

mean, I mean, you just-- I watched my older sister, probably one of the greatest

acts of defiance that I've ever seen: my older sister, Betty, she's 80 years old

yesterday, and she's just as tough as she was when she was. But I was riding a

bus with her in Houston, and this was in the fifties too, so it had to be about

[19]58. And we were riding across town, heading home, and we, we sat right in

front of the bus. Whether she was thinking, you know... You got to, she's, she's

a pretty feisty little-- and then she would've only been about 13 or 14, and I

would've been third grade. And, so we sat in the front of the bus, and the bus

driver stopped, and the bus was crowded, and he wanted-- bus driver stopped and

came out, told her she had to get up, go back of the bus and let these white

people sit down. And I'm like, "Hmm." I'm only nine years old. So I'm like, hmm,

this big old guy is. And then she refused to move. And, um...

And then he balled up his fist and he threatened her, and she refused to move.

And, uh, and she just sat there, and then he had to go drive that bus,

and he left her alone the rest of the ride. She never budged.

Visintainer:

That's very courageous.

Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the way 00:28:00she is. And so you, you know, I've seen, and,

you know you grew up with those pictures on tv, the Birmingham and all that

stuff, and Little Rock and, bombings and kids with-- and so you knew that there

was this tension. But like I tell people, and I gave a speech the other day for

Black History. I was always a person that took literally the words of the, the,

the preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the

Gettysburg Address. And I remember I had to memorize the preamble in the

Gettysburg Address and the first couple of paragraphs of the Declaration of

Independence when I was in segregated schools in Houston, Texas, in the ninth

grade. And I took those words literally.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And I looked at my dad's service, and he had obviously paid a, you know, paid

for his citizenship, wearing that uniform for 24 years. And so I always have had

the feeling and, uh, that, "Hey, if you're, if you're better than me, that means

you can whip me in the football field or wrestling, or you can beat me on the

spelling bee or the math bee or something like that. But you don't automatically

get that.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

That's not an automatic. I walk through the door like you walk through

the door, and then we'll see how it goes.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And, uh, and I guess that's, I even, uh, even in my own career, I kept that same

kind of attitude. And you know, and I've got deep roots that in terms of where

my family comes from, especially on my mother's side. My wife does these great

genealogies. And, I actually book brought the book that she has kind of put

together. Rather than just a 00:30:00photo album, she puts together genealogical albums,

and they're kind of cool.

Visintainer:

Nice.

Jackson:

I'll show you at some point if you want to see it.

Visintainer:

Yeah, I'd love to.

Jackson:

Yeah. But, so, but, you know. One of the things I do tell people, sometimes

younger people is that, we like to say that we're all born equal. And that's a

kind of an idealistic sort of thing. But if your mother was a drug addict and

you were born addicted, you're not the same as the guy who's like, my kids, you

know, their dad was already an officer, and already was financially stable,

their mother was healthy, a registered dietician, and what she did during her

pregnancy is very different than what this-- And so the kids start out equal in

terms of under whatever your religion is, under your god's eye, maybe they're

equal, but in terms of what the world's offering 'em right now, real different.

Okay. And so things like race-- and so I say, "Everybody's born with a backpack,

and in that backpack is X amount of rocks." And it's a little bit different,

what the weight is at birth. Now, as you go through life, you can take out a

rock or you can add a rock. Some of 'em are based on choices of, of your own

choice. And some of 'em are based on family choices or just accidents. And race

is one of those things that can either be, um, a rock, a heavy rock in your

pack. Or it can lighten your load. And that's one of the ironic things about it

is for my dad, it was probably a heavier rock, but for me, it lightened the

load. It 00:32:00might have actually lightened the load, you know? And so as we-- As

you-- And so as a result of that, his carrying a heavy rock and me having much

lighter load, I owe him something. But more than that, I owe the next generation

something too for that. And, you know, does that make sense?

Visintainer:

Yeah, that's a wonderful analogy. And something I've never heard phrased that way.

Jackson:

Yeah.

Visintainer:

And I think it's, it's uh, befitting somebody who was in the military to talk

about weight and backpacks.

Jackson:

Yeah, right, yeah. I guess, so.

Visintainer:

Did you come up with the analogy when you were in the military,?Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah, probably. I did. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. I was in you know, it is,

uh, it's -- life is like that. Now, and you, and a lot of times, and once you

get to be a certain age, and I was telling this young man that I met, he was

very bold. He was in the high school, junior ROTC [Reserve Officers Training

Corps] at an event a month or so ago, and he walks right up to me having, I was

introduced as a general.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And here's this, you know, maybe 14 year-old kid. He was in the ninth grade. And

I said, "You know what?" I said, uh, I asked him about his grades and all that.

I said kind of, "You're lightening your load. You're an honor student. You wear

that uniform well. You're doing athletics, keep doing that. Everything you do,

it counts from the ninth grade on. I mean, that's when you're getting your GPA

counts, you getting your PSATs, you're doing all these kinds of things that

people are gonna judge your next opportunity on -- post high school." And says,

"So, you young man are lightening your load, you know, so keep it going."

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Yeah. So it is kind of a, yeah. I guess it's military speak. Can't

help it.

Visintainer:

Yeah. Um, I just had one 00:34:00follow up question about, uh, about your drugstore

sit-in. Well, actually, I guess I had a couple. What was the drugstore?

Jackson:

You know, I'm trying to remember the, because I don't want to-- we had a lot of

Walgreens in that part of the country. So I think it was Walgreens at the time,

that, uh, it was right at our bus stop. And, uh, yeah. Then they, they became

quite a target for students, you know?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

It's a, nowadays they don't even have the soda fountains in the drugstore like

they did in those days, you know? But yeah, I'm pretty, I'm about 90% sure it

was Walgreens. Because number one, because I don't remember any other of the

drug stores that were there. And it was, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But--

Visintainer:

Did, uh, did you ever tell your parents?

Jackson:

Yeah. Well, at that time, dad was someplace else. I think dad was stationed in

close to the North Pole in Greenland.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

Yeah. And so we were in Houston for that stay. And, um... And I probably told my

mother. When I was that [inaudible] age... I really, it was hard for me to

imagine living beyond eighteen.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

We lived in Houston. You know, we lived-- we were bused to school past the white

high school and junior high into what you might call the ghetto. Fifth Ward in

Houston. And it was nicknamed "Bloody Fifth" for good reason, 00:36:00because somebody

was getting killed kind of routinely. It was a very violent part of Houston,

Texas. And, uh, my junior high and eighth and ninth grade was in Fifth Ward. And

my older brothers and sister, they went to Phyllis Wheatley [High School]. I

went to E.O. Smith [Junior High] which was named after a African American poet.

And, I was probably in a fight, like... I mean, here I was this guy that didn't

have an accent. And I was marked, even my teacher, I remember my English teacher

mocking my, uh, "trying to talk like a Kennedy," she told me. She told the whole

class, 'cause I was reading something and she stopped me. And she, "What are you

trying to talk like a Kennedy?" I said, "This is the way we talk in my family."

I didn't know this was any different, but yeah, coming to the south, you're

talking different and you don't have their accent. And, uh, and so I was kind of

a prime target for a while. And yeah. And fortunately I played football and you

know, and I had two big bad older brothers. And so, but it was like-- you know,

you had to fight. And then right in the middle of ninth grade, I moved to Oakland.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Which hardly is just that much better. But that was only two fights. So that was quick and easy.

And fortunately we were all trained to box and stuff like that, so it turned out

all right. But really when I was fourteen, fifteen, I thought eighteen would be,

"Yeah. Eighteen's about right." You know?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You know, so you, you, you were already, you know, so when I say 00:38:00 I'm

seventy-three, you know, I'm a happy camper.

Visintainer:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jackson:

Exceeded expectations. Yeah.

Visintainer:

Um, I was curious about when your, when your father was deployed, you said he

was deployed to Korea and was he deployed in World War II?

Jackson:

He was in World War II, but I was not even born, and so the war, he wasn't

deployed. He had seven kids by the time Vietnam, so the Army wouldn't send him.

You know, that would've been quite a burden. So he did not, well, he served

during the Vietnam War in the early stages, he never deployed to Vietnam.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

The family member that got deployed to Vietnam was my older brother, Matt.

Visintainer:

Okay.

Jackson:

He was, he was drafted. Uh, and yeah, the way it worked out was that my older

sister had graduated from high school. I ended up being the first one to

graduate from college, just 'cause my older sister, it wasn't the norm or the

expectation. And she had gotten married and had a kid, so, and she's probably as

smart or smarter than every one of us. And then Matt, my older brother, there

wasn't the financials in the family and he had gone to four. Different. High schools.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Every year. And so, although he's a better athlete than I ever was, he was never

recognized in one spot, scouted out by universities or anything. So he ended up

going to Chico State [California State University, Chico] a year later on an

English literature scholarship. Um, and because he was a year behind his peers,

he didn't have the college credits necessary to avoid the draft. And so he got drafted.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

And then he goes in the army, goes to Vietnam and gets really some disease and

maybe even Agent Orange. Uh, he-- 00:40:00affected him very badly over there. And so he

was medically evacuated from Vietnam to San Francisco. There was a big army

hospital in San Francisco and eventually discharged, got his GI bill, went back

to college, got his B.A., Got his master's degree, and became a dean of students

up at Butte [California] Community College. So he lived a really good life.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Great kids, two outstanding kids. And then a terrific wife, Billie. Billie

passed away a couple years ago, but she's just been selected, gonna have a big

induction ceremony through the Chico State Hall of Fame. And so she, and here's

his daughter is the CEO, Joy is the CEO. It's not the GRE but there's another

graduate record thing, you know, and so Matt did well, so. Don, my older

brother, short time in the Air Force, booted him out for whatever he did wrong, you know, but I'm the only one that made it a career [inaudible]. So,

uh, um, yeah. But, but mom was always that glue. Just like my wife Sue is the

glue for my boys and who did most of the child raising. I had this big strong

boxer-soldier dad that I really looked up to and was my lifetime hero. But mom

was actually doing the hard work.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And probably the same thing in my family in terms of, you know, dad's a Marine

and a officer and doing his thing and going away and, and, but the military

spouses who get left behind, they do a lot of the child raising, set the

standards. And so when people say thank you for your service, they really ought

to be talking to the spouses.

Visintainer:

Well, and that's something I was kind of curious about in that, when, when

somebody's 00:42:00deployed, and if there's, I guess this is kind of a complicated

question that I'm formulating as I go along, so I apologize if it gets a little

jumbled, but when somebody's deployed, like in your father's time, um, were

there support services involved with the Army to help out, to help out the

parents that were staying and raising children? Or were they more informal in nature?

Jackson:

They were very, very, very informal. Not, and I, quite frankly, I can't-- I

can't say I have memories of during my father and mother's time that they had

the support services which are ingrained in the services now. And even when I

came in, to be honest, in [19]75, the military's attitude, the Marine Corps'

attitude was probably, well if the, if the Marine Corps wanted you to have a,

wanted you to have a spouse they'd have put her in your, in your sea bag when

they issued you the gear. Was that in there? Okay. And that was

probably the attitude. It wasn't until the eighties that the Navy and the Marine

Corps, and I'm not quite sure when the Army, but I'm sure about the same time

with them, we started putting together really substantial programs. And first

it, it revolved around volunteers and-- but organized in what they call the Key

Volunteer Program. And in the Navy it was the Ombudsman Program. And, and, and

that, and that was in the eighties. And in, in the, in the, um, 2000s, as we

were getting more involved in the Middle East, they actually started hiring

family counselors, Members that take, they literally took the place, for each

battalion, they would have professional kind of family counselors. And so, and

they still had the Key Volunteers, but then they paid 00:44:00people and they had, uh,

it was presumed prior to that, that the wives, an officer's wife, the senior

officer's wife, would take the lead whether she was-- wanted to or not. It was,

it was presumed that that would happen or the senior enlisted wife would team up

with her and they would take care of all the younger ones and all that. And

there were just some women who were not, you know, not that social or did not

want to do that, or were-- wasn't in their personality. So there was a lot. When

I was a young commanding officer, a company, I knew if I was over in the Far

East in Japan or something and with my whole company and Corporal Ramos' wife

was about ready to have a baby here at Camp Pendleton I'd call my wife, buy some

flowers for Corporal Ramos' wife, put his name on 'em and take 'em over to the

base hospital and make sure she knows that he's thinking about her. And my wife

was willing to do that, you know?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And so, and I would willingly pay for it out of my pocket too.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Uh, but it, it, it's, it is now much more formal and it's expected and it's

expected in the military, and now you have a lot of, we probably have more

daycare centers per capita than the, than regular society, you know? There's, I

forget, there's a half a dozen or more daycare centers on Camp Pendleton.

Miramar has theirs all the bases and have the childcare centers. And so I think

that there's much more, the military has taken a, uh, realize happy wife, happy

spouse. You're more likely to have a career, [inaudible] soldier, sailor, marine.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You're taking care of the family too.

Visintainer:

It makes sense in terms of retention and morale and all of that, yeah.

Jackson:

All of that. You know, one of the things I found is it translates in many ways 00:46:00to combat power. You know that no matter what happens to you, that your

family's gonna be taken care of and you're gonna be taken care of. And so

that's, that gives you strength, that gives every marine, every soldier, every

sailor, that kind of strength. You know that I saw in other foreign armies that

you got wounded and you're not killed you, you [shakes head]. So their soldiers

weren't as aggressive.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Uh, they didn't have the same initiative to, you know, and it is not because

they were less, you know, a man or less brave. It's just that they had that,

well, there's no VA [Veteran's Administration], there's no, there's no widow's

pension. There's no, you know. And so he's gotta be a little bit more careful,

you know? So--

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

It does equate to the combat power.

Visintainer:

I's a, it's a rock in your pack perhaps.

Jackson:

Yeah. In terms of success for the mission that you're about ready to accomplish.

Visintainer:

Yeah. Okay. Um, excuse me, you mentioned the Key Volunteer

Program and so I, so I understand like the, you know, the purpose of a counselor

or the purpose of a daycare--

Jackson:

Mm-hmm.

Visintainer:

But I was curious as to what the Key Volunteer Program, like what their purpose

was, what types of activities they undertook, and as a support--

Jackson:

I, I think the main focus was to make sure if the families had a need, that it

was taken care of while the service member was overseas. And a lot of times the

wives would organize parties and picnics for the kids and, uh, things like that.

Or they would exchange phone numbers so that you knew who to call in case of,

you know, there's a rattlesnake in the garage the day after your

husband left, you know, the car broke down the day after your husband

left. Um, uh, so, but the whole idea of the Key Volunteer Program was to make 00:48:00sure that the families knew where to go when they needed support, when the

spouse was deployed overseas. Uh, and, uh, and they were literally volunteer in

the most part. In the early days, you didn't get guys, it was mostly the wives,

but now we have more you know, the, the... The military member may be the, the,

the, the, the woman and the man is now the spouse that needs help when--

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And you. And so that was the whole point of the, um, the Key Volunteer Program:

to bring them together, they knew there was a tight-knit family that would help

take care of-- It was kind of like, uh, East Battalion had its own village, you

know? And the village was designed to take care of, of all of the people that

were left behind. Yeah.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

So yeah,

Visintainer:

That's, that's pretty interesting. I'd never, never heard of this, uh, program before.

Jackson:

Yeah. It's a, it's a really good program. They professionalized the lead person

at the battalion in about two thousand and three. A battalion's about a thousand

Marines. Like on Camp Pendleton you have battalions and squadrons. Squadrons is

the aviation equivalent of a battalion. And they would all have a senior lady,

and they put, they actually had paid people do that. I think they're maybe

toning that down a little bit with no war, but they still have the program. Uh,

um, and, uh, yeah.

Visintainer:

Excuse me. Um, let's talk about how you decided to enlist.

So I understand you were, you were graduated with a master's [degree] at this point.

Jackson:

Yeah.

Visintainer:

You were working and--

Jackson:

Well, let's see. I 00:50:00got married. Sue and I got married. We met at San Jose State

[University]. Um, I had always aspired to be an officer. I thought I'd join the

Army when I-- I was in ROTC just for a short while, at San Jose State in Army

ROTC. And, it didn't sit well with all the other things that I was doing. But I

still aspired to be an officer. Okay. I met my wife in an anatomy and physiology

class in Spring of 1969. And, um, and it was a night class, so I would just walk

her back to her sorority and I'd go down the street to my dorm. It was just a

matter of safety and coming out of class after nine o'clock in an urban

environment. And, and that was it. We didn't date or anything. I would just

escort her.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

You know, football player escorting pretty sorority girl home. And she's only

two blocks from, or three blocks from where I was staying in the dorm. But the

next fall, we were on campus and I met her on campus, just kind of bumped into

each other again, not thinking much of that previous spring. And she said she

had moved outta the sorority house, "come on over." So, mm-- you know, I was a little reluctant, you know, uh, blonde

blue-eyed. And those days I wasn't dating blonde, blue-eyed gals. So I

recruited a couple more football players, Black, to come over and visit her and

her friends, just so it would be-- And uh, son of a gun if the three football

players and her three roommates all left and went to a party! So

there we were, you know, and, uh, we studied together and then we got to start

getting together on Thursday nights just to study. My grades shot up which was really 00:52:00good. And she was a home ec[onomics] major, and

so she'd experiment with foods with me and being a football player, I could take

all the calories she could pump out, you know. So I'd get an extra meal every

day, kind of, every Thursday, when we'd get together. And then finally

by the end of that semester, or close to it, I said, "Are we an item?" You know?

And we decided that we were an item. So 1970 rolls around, and we, we decide to

get permission from her side of the family. My side of the family reluctantly

accepted the interracial dating, my dad being a Texan, that, that, you know, he

had bad memories of that stuff.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And, uh, my mother was, she loved everybody no matter what. But her [Sue's]

parents weren't real happy.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

So the explosion went off and which actually drove us tighter together. We just

wanted to date openly. Um, I often say that we had gone to see the movie, Guess

Who's Coming To Dinner with Sidney Poitier... And, uh. And when her

parents found out about it, and I suddenly realized I was not Sidney Poitier. It

wasn't gonna work out. But that sort of drove us together. And within, uh, four

or five months, I just asked her to marry me. And, uh, because her family

disowned her for the very fact that we'd gotten-- we were wanting to date.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And they didn't want her to date. And I had never told her I loved her.

Visintainer:

Yeah. Wow.

Jackson:

We just wanted to date openly. And so... We uh, 00:54:00as the, as the, her world

crowded in on her to try to break us up, it forced us together and me to be more

defensive of her. And her-- she stood her ground. And uh, I once told my mother,

"Well I don't know what love is, but I know what sacrifice is, and she has opted

to date me," as opposed to a family that-- I mean, she's 21 years-old, you don't

just give up your family. Her family gave up her, you know, and so, and that was

just her mother and father by the way, not cousins or grandparents. Um, uh, and

so. Uh, we got married. I asked her at Thanksgiving in 1970, "Hon, will you

marry me?" You know, and she said, "When?" I had no idea when.

I said, "semester break!"

Jackson:

It was my senior year. She was in grad school. And, uh, so I didn't have a job,

but I'd just played my last football game the previous Saturday. And so the

scholarship was gonna run out at the end of, uh, at graduation. So I was on

time, Four years you know, because four years scholarship, you know, and, uh,

so, uh... I s--, but I didn't have any rings or anything. So I go, um, but there

was one alum, and this is another reason why I will have to reach back. There

was one alum, Paul Barracker, little Jewish guy. He owned, I thought he only

owned one jewelry store. He ended up owning four. But this little guy. And I

told her [Sue], I asked her on Thanksgiving to marry me. And I said -- when we

get back, we were visiting her sister in Sacramento -- "When we get back 00:56:00to San

Jose, we'll go to Paul's Jewelers, downtown San Jose, and we'll get rings." Now,

I didn't have a nickel.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

That's the ironic self-confident naive, uh, kid I was, I guess. And so

Monday rolls around and we go down to Paul's, which is just, you could walk off

campus, to Paul's--

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And Paul's in the store. It's one of these stores that, you know, straight in

downtown, it's jewelry on this side, jewelry on that side, just walk back to the

counter. Very narrow store. Paul's in the back and he sees me come and I, you

know, he was an alum who would come to football practice, sometimes fly to the

games on the same plane as the team. So that's how I knew him.

Visintainer:

Okay.

Jackson:

As this alum who supported football, not as a friend. I mean, he was old enough

to be obviously my dad or, or, or maybe even older than that. And Paul comes

running out, I mean, little bitty arms. I could wrap my hand around his bicep,

close my fingers. Right. And he's in a football stance. "Tony so good to see

you!" "Paul, hold it!" He's really enthusiastic.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Old European kind of an accent. And, uh, he-- I said, "Paul, hold it. I want you

to meet my fiancé, Sue." And he said, "Oh, so pleased to meet you, Sue!" Does

this double handshake. I'll never forget this. And then he goes, I said, "Well,

what are you doing?" I said, "Paul, I came to buy, uh, our wedding rings and

engagement ring." He says, "Oh, good! Good, good, good!" I said, "But Paul, I

don't have any money, so if you hire me, I'll start to work." He says, "Okay!

Okay, okay. You stop bothering me. Go back, talk to my secretary, fill out the

application. You 00:58:00can come to work. Sue, you can buy anything in the store." So I got, I got a job selling jewelry through,

through grad school, paid for those rings. I come to find out just a few years

ago that Sue gave him a $25 down payment or something, but she just told me that.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

But I worked for Paul. He taught me all about sapphires and all the diamonds and

his jeweler, the guy who made some of the jewelry, he would teach me. He was

from France. And he would, we had, I'd give him some English lessons, and now he

liked my accent because it was flat.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You know, it didn't come with a New York or a twang or anything like that,

accent. And so we exchanged a little bit of, he would teach me about clarity and

diamonds, and I would clarify some words he didn't understand. Okay. But I did

that for about a year and a half. And I also, uh, coached at a junior college --

football -- and realized that I didn't want to be a football coach. But I had

finished my master's degree, started my PhD at UC [University of California]

Santa Cruz in history. And just, and I was teaching a class -- History of Third

World Peoples -- as a grad student. And I just said, "Stop. I gotta,

I gotta get on with life." Sue was a high school teacher.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And so I actually went to work for an insurance company. So time is marching on.

In the back of my mind, I still want to be a military officer. I still, war is

going on in Vietnam, and I'm sitting here now, I'm in the insurance business.

I'm making a lot of money. We bought a house in what became Silicon Valley. I

can't even afford that house now. But bought a house. She got tenured. I was

making a lot of money in the insurance business. My boss was really 01:00:00glad that I

decided, you know, again, I was offered several jobs.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

You know, when I finally decided to work, he tried to recruit me right outta

college. And my, before I-- Right when Sue and I got married, he tried to get me

to go to work for him at his insurance company, and I'd turned it down, but now

here I was a year or two later and I was working for him and he was really good.

It was like having somebody, being in a master's degree class, the Michael

Anderson Agency with Penn Mutual Life. And this guy, Mike Anderson, was just a

terrific teacher and mentor. And, and so I got off to fast start under his wing

in insurance, and I was the consummate kind of, you know, I'd just been the

captain of the football team, and all that [inaudible]. I'd been in San Jose for

five years and all that stuff. So I knew a lot of people. And so I could contact them.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

But one day I was with a bunch of clients in, uh, in, uh, Candlestick Park, the

old Giants, San Francisco Giants watching the Giants and Dodgers play in May of

1975. And across the screen, the-- from days on end, you saw pictures in the

news of Marines and soldiers evacuating people from Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh

City, Vietnam] and helicopter, dramatic, people holding onto the rails of

helicopters trying to get out as the North Vietnamese took over the country. And

the same thing was happening in Camb-- Cambodia, and Phnom Penh. And so, uh,

I... And an American ship, the U.S.S Mayaguez had been captured by the Khmer

Rouge, a communist group, and we didn't know where the sailors were from that

ship. And across the screen at the ballgame, kind of the old ticker tape kind of 01:02:00 thing.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

"US Marines, recapture the Mayaguez." Said the thing. And I'm sitting here with

hotdogs and beer and entertaining clients at a game. So the next day I put on my

suit and I went to a recruiter. Didn't tell my wife. He goes, "Hey, you go to

college?" And I said, yeah. And he said, "Well, you need to go see the officer

selection offer in Alameda." So I took all my tests, signed up all in one day,

came home and told her. I remember the guy, he goes, "Do, you wanna,

you want me to come home? I got a great movie we can show your wife. About what

you're about ready to experience." I said, "You don't want me in my house

tonight," , "When I tell her what I just did." So I became private

Anthony Jackson for a while before I went off OCS [Officer Candidate School].

But I was twenty-six, I was running out of time, and these guys were serving

overseas, risking their lives. And here I had done nothing to really validate

what I thought. And my idealistic view was to validate my citizenship and ensure

that you could never deny me. As my father did, as my little brother did. So--

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And I still promised my wife it would only be for three years. Said, "Three

honey. That's it." I actually got out and went into the reserves for about a

year in keeping that three-year promise, which really, I was kind of sliding. I

didn't realize I was gonna, eh long-- I found that the Marine Corps was my calling.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And even I got out, went to work, another high-paying job. Got, they gave me a

brand new car with Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical, and sent me to Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania. But I just couldn't believe I'd be working. Uh, and I, so I joined

a reserves unit to stay in touch, and then I realized that I started living for

that reserve weekend.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And 01:04:00not what I was doing with Kaiser and, uh, and money wasn't important to me.

And so I asked the Marine Corps to take me back, and the rest is kind of history

at [inaudible] point.

Visintainer:

Had you ever expressed to Sue before you, uh, before you enlisted, that you had

this idea?

Jackson:

Yeah, she knew that. She knew that that was kind of in my bones, but I really

wanted-- I, in the first couple years with that flare-up in her family over our

marriage, I wanted to make sure we had a solid marriage.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Before I all of the sudden ran off and left her, you know. I really did. I think

that was why I delayed for so long, uh, was, you know, that was a pretty big

sacrifice on her part.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And it was never healed back up. I never, I had never met my-- I met my

mother-in-law, but I never did meet my father-in-law. Although we did have a

civil conversation on the phone one time. But that was the only time I even

talked to him. And that was in like 1978. So, um, and then he passed away. As

if-- it was ironic because he and I should have been really good friends. We're,

you know, he's a naval officer. He was a World War II destroyer escort. And he

had, he'd graduated from UC Berkeley, their ROTC program. He was down here in

San Diego when Pearl Harbor was attacked, on his reserve duty and mobilized

right away. And they sailed into Pearl Harbor just the week after. You know, he

was still smoldering. Things were still, they were still trying to find guys

that were in capsized ships that were still alive. And, um, and he kept a diary.

And, a part of that time, he had great distinguished service during World War 01:06:00II, became the CO [Commanding Officer] of a ship. He was a junior ensign when

Pearl Harbor happened, but he had his own ship by the time the war ended. And,

uh, and then he retired as a Navy-- captain in the Navy, in the reserves,

started his own business in, uh, he became a plumbing contractor, not a-- the

guy that supplies all the contractors with all their gear. And during the boom

years of growth in the Bay Area and made millions. And of course my wife

probably didn't know how many millions he made, but she was disinherited. And

that was, that was, uh, her sister got it all when he passed away. And

that's probably how we found out. But, um, and so, yeah. She's, she's tough.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You know, and, and held her ground and, uh, and it has been a source of strength

and you don't really recognize all those things. She is motivating. She won't

take credit, but she has been a prime motivating factor in my life. Um, uh, I

mean she has her own, she has her own opinions, her own thoughts, et cetera.

But, you know, you want to, you want to do well for those who believe in you

kind of a deal.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

So you know, I've always wanted, I mean, I've taken great risk at times without

thinking about that, but I think one of the things that's always in the back of

my mind is that, you know, I do owe this woman something.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You know, so don't screw it up, buddy. But that means certainly you

have to be a person of strength, especially if you're in an organization like

the Marine Corps. You know, you're not a yes person. I mean, you can't be a yes

person. I mean, you, you, 01:08:00you, you have to gauge when you should engage and you

have to engage when you should just, maybe just shut up, but be willing to take

on the right fights, you know? And sometimes you win 'em, sometimes you lose

'em, but don't back down until it's time to back down and then have the judgment

to know when it's time to back down, you know. So it's kind of a give and take

thing, because sometimes you're the boss and sometimes you're the junior guy

that has to execute the plan.

Visintainer:

And having that judgment, I think is really difficult when you're, uh, so

invested in something.

Jackson:

Yeah.

Visintainer:

And I imagine if you're in the Marine Corps and you're in a situation where you

need to have that judgment, you're very invested in it.

Jackson:

Yeah. And, uh, and I've been on those sides of that, you know. I've lost an

argument and then had to be the presenter, you know?

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

You know, you're the guy that, uh, "Wait a minute! I was the only one in the

room that objected." "Yeah. But you're, you're the communicator.

You're gonna communicate it up the chain, right?" "Wait a minute, I'm-- there

were twelve guys that agreed with you, sir." "Yeah, Tony, but you were the most

articulate, you're presenting it! Just make sure you win!"

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

"When you present it up the chain, you know?" So I've been on that side of the

coin. And, you know, you-- And the other thing is, I did appreciate the Marine

Corps. That the Marine Corps appreciates strength and not weakness, not, you

know, it appreciates the fact that you will pick the right time and place. You

know, you don't want to embarrass the boss, but will you challenge him? And so

you have to have that combination of moral courage and judgment and

communication skills to win over when it's not, 01:10:00it may not be a smooth

subject. Okay? I think that is both been an asset and may have cost me a little

bit of something at some point, but not nothing that-- I mean, my career

exceeded my expectations. I'm not a Naval Academy guy. I'm not an ROTC guy. I

didn't come out as a 21 year-old. I came in as second oldest guy in my OCS

platoon. There was one other army guy that was a former soldier that was older

than me, but I was, I was already as a-- the same age as my first bosses, my

first commanding officers when I was a second lieutenant. And so I was always

kind of -- agewise -- I think that was an edge, actually, that lightened my load

because I had a sense of humor and I wasn't afraid of the process. I

wasn't afraid of the process. Yeah. Because you had to. Yeah. When you go to OCS

or recruit training, like down here in San Diego, you just have to drop who you are.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

For that twelve weeks. You gotta just drop who you are and accept that you're

gonna be a mold. You get to be who you are once you get out of that process, you

know, of them breaking you down and building you back up. So I think my age was

actually a benefit. Because of my body was still, uh, easily willed into Marine

Corps shape. So, yeah. And having a dad who was a sergeant in the army probably

helped me a lot too.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

I already knew how to make a military bed, you know, to inspection

standards. We did that before we went to Sunday school. We got

inspected. You know, it's really funny about not remembering this as a kid.

You're standing in front of your bunk just like I did at OCS, and your dad's

inspecting the shine on your shoes and the crease in your trousers and stuff

like that, you know. And here you are, you're ten, you're ten years

old, and 01:12:00dad's throwing a quarter on the bed to see if it bounces. The bed's

that tight. The bed has to be tight enough of that coin to bounce up, you know?

So Yeah. We got those inspections on Sundays.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Boys lined up. Uh, yeah. But, uh, yeah. So, yeah. So it's been what?

Sue and I have been married, yeah, we just celebrated our 52nd [wedding

anniversary], you know--

Visintainer:

Congratulations.

Jackson:

Whew. Yeah. That's, uh, it's been, it's been a road. It's been a good road.

'Cause we, you know, we, we, we have a lot of things. I tell her that the reason

why we're a successful marriage is because we have absolutely nothing in common. You know? I'm a hunter and she's a doggone near herbivore. You know,

not quite, but you know, uh, yeah. And we, we, we have a lot of, a lot

of differences, which make it kind of good because she has her leans, and I have

my leans, you know?

Visintainer:

Yeah. It gives you space to be your own person and you can come together around commonalities.

Jackson:

Right, right. And so, and then we'll come together for like a trip to the

Sierras [Sierra Nevada mountain range]. Well I'll do fishing, and she'll do her

native plant art, her botanical art. She likes to do that. And, uh, and so it's

really kind of interesting. They'll come back at the end of the day, she'll show

me her drawings and I'll show her my one little fish. So, yeah. But, uh,

Visintainer:

Excuse me. So, um, so you've had a really long and distinguished career and I

don't think we have time to go through it in like, phase, you know, and, and

every phase of it. So I'd like to skip forward just a bit towards the end of

your military career.

Jackson:

Okay. 01:14:00 Visintainer:

And talking about the work that you did, as I understand it, as the commander

of, marine camps, Marine Corps, Installations West.

Jackson:

Right.

Visintainer:

Um, and so this is a, this is a big deal, right?

Jackson:

This is the culmination of, uh, um, all of my general officer assignments were

big deals, I thought. I mean, they were shocking the amount of responsibility a

nation was willing to give a person and this special trust and confidence that

you build up over, you know, twenty-eight, twenty-nine years and they finally

make you a general. Um, so, uh, if you don't mind, I'll talk about the first

assignment. I was, uh-- here, I was selected for my first star as Brigadier

General. And I was given the assignment to be the Deputy Commanding General for

Marine [Corps] Forces Central Command. MARCENT in shorthand. So, which meant

that I was gonna be the deputy for first General [Wallace "Chip"] Gregson, then

General [John F.] Sattler, and then general, I had three generals who became my

bosses, general [James N.] Mattis. Um, so in that capacity, my headquarters, I

had two headquarters, one in Tampa, Florida, where Central Command is, and one

in, Bahrain, which is on the Arabian Gulf near Saudi Arabia. And, my main job

was to ensure that commanders and marines in contact on the battlefield had what

they need. You're, you're the link for, the commander needs this, and industry

makes it, and your headquarters. You were the judge on whether: did they really

need it? And if they really needed it -- 01:16:00which I always agreed with the

commander on the battlefield, because he knew his needs -- does the industry

have it? And if headquarters is fighting it, tell them to get it, we're buying

it. And I had that budget too, and so I would visit the battlefields and visit

the commanders, uh, both Afghanistan and Iraq during that two year assignment.

And they, and, and the-- so being in and out of the battlefield, it was

different than being deployed. I had been deployed to Iraq as a colonel, but as

a general, I was in and out. And I would also do diplomatic stuff in Egypt for

the United States military. In Egypt, in Pakistan, and Bahrain and Oman. And I

would go around and visit the military commanders and my peers. And, um, but the

most critical thing I did was teaming up with a scientist named Susie Alderson,

who is from right here in Fallbrook. And we, the battlefield, the commanders

were wanting a vehicle that was more durable and could sustain the improvised

explosive device explosions [IEDs]. And we just did not have that. Uh, we had

the vehicle that our, our, our explosive ordinance disposal teams, they had a

vehicle called a mine resistant, ambush protected vehicle, an MRAP. And if they

got hit by a mine, it, because these guys went out into mine fields all the time

and diffused them, or blew 'em up or whatever. They had this one special vehicle

that the South Africans had developed that MRAP, but the [US armed] services

weren't, they were sold on the Humvee for some reason. We were taking 01:18:00 horrific

casualties from these improvised explosion devices. Taking off arms, legs,

killing people. And so when I was in Afghanistan, I had a United, I visited this

United Nations mine clearing team, and they invited me to ride in one of these

South African-built MRAPs as they were gonna clear mines. And here this general,

my aide was a young captain. He did not want to get in that vehicle, but they

had kind of like, "come on for the ride," okay sort of challenge you.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And I'm in a helmet, flack jacket. I've even got ballistic protection where it

really counts, you know, and, uh, so, and these guys were dressed much

like you.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And so I took-- accepted their ride, and we hit probably seven mines, more?

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

But they were all -- fortunately -- anti-personnel mines. And so we got rattled

and we could hear the shrapnel hitting the sides of the vehicle, but we were

okay. But--

Visintainer:

What did that feel like when you hit a mine that first time?

Jackson:

Well, this vehicle was pretty solid, right?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

I mean, what it, what it just, it kind of set off alarms and gives you a little

adrenaline rush. And it was kind of like if you'd had, you ever had a rock hit

the windshield in front of your car? The way it smacks that hard.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Yeah. It's like a bunch of those at once. Except they're hitting metal,

so you-- And I could see our chase! They gave us a chase vehicle just in case we

got stranded out there, you know, vehicle breakdown. And I could see he was

hitting them too. So it wasn't doing any, anybody, any good. The Soviets had

laid a lot of mines and they were just, they were just horrible in Afghanistan,

'cause they put 'em in these farmers' fields so they wouldn't grow, couldn't

grow crops. And that's what the UN was doing there, clearing them as we were

fighting Taliban or whoever else.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And 01:20:00so I came home. I had this passion to get this vehicle, and I had, but I

wasn't gonna be able to do it. Generals, the Army had refused, the Marine Corps

had refused to get this vehicle. There was a whole, I didn't realize this fight

was going on. I just knew my experience. And I had seen them before. General

Gregson had showed me one. And here comes Susie Alderson. She had been in Iraq

for a number of months, and she on her own initiative, she was a scientist

assigned to me. And so she had been over there. Um, mine was a new command, so

they had just set up MARCENT to handle the Middle East. And so I was the first

permanent. So here I had this scientist assigned to me, and I hadn't tasked her

with anything mm-hmm. But she had been over there and she did a study on

survivability in various vehicles. So she had all the data laid out, if you're

in this kind of, um Humvee you're gonna get killed. If you're in this kind,

ehhh, there's a 80% chance you're gonna get killed. You're gonna get your legs

blown off. If you're in this truck, this-- but if you're in this MRAP that the

improvised explosive of the [inaudible] explosive warning disposal teams, you're

most likely only gonna feel concussion. Not a death.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

So I said, "Susie, great! That fits my passion." I called my staff together, put

Susie and them together. Said, "You got ten PowerPoint slides, and we're gonna

present this to the three-star [general]. So you [inaudible] no more than ten,

they w-- general officers will fall asleep if you got more than ten PowerPoint

slides. Do not do that." So I left the room and left her to my staff to power--

come up. They came in a couple hours later, "Sir, this is the brief." And I

said, "Perfect." I didn't make a change to it. Susie and my chief of staff put

this, it was beautiful. I called up on a 01:22:00secure VTC [video teleconference]

because my boss was out here at Camp Pendleton, and here I was in Tampa. Got him

on a little secure video of the day and told Susie, "Susie, you're the briefer.

The generals have never won this argument, but you got the right voice." And, so

she briefed it and they, General Sattler stopped it, or slide number seven. Next

thing you know, we called up the commandant, okay, he got it in three slides.

And I started buying these vehicles. I mean, and I won't bore you with

the technical part of it, but Susie's data got those vehicles in within six or

seven months. I mean, I sent her around to all the big vehicle manufacturers in

the US said, it's gotta have this transmission, it's gotta have this drivetrain,

it's gotta have this engine. And these are the three different prototypes that

you can build. You know, the John Deeres of the world that build heavy

equipment, they changed assembly lines. They were happy to pitch in.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And, uh, the first 300 [IED] hits in 2006, no Marine Corps deaths.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

So Susie becomes the mother of the MRAP and gets the highest decoration that a

civilian can get in peace time in the, in the Department of Navy. So that was a

big deal. And then as a two, that was as a one-star, that was one of the best

effects as a one. As a two-star. I get assigned as the, uh, we have these four

star commands, combatant commands is what they're called. One for the Pacific,

one for Europe, one for South America, um, Pacific, European Command, Southern

Command... 01:24:00And, we're gonna develop another one. And it's US Africa Command. And

I'm chosen to be the first Director of Military Operations and Logistics, the J3

and the J4 for that command, headquartered outta Stuttgart, Germany and our

focus would be the continent of Africa and all the associated islands. Minus Egypt.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

We kept Egypt in Central command. And, uh, so, uh, it's brand

new! There's nothing there. I mean, we're in rehabbed Army World War II

buildings that belonged to the Wehrmacht in 1930.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Its [inaudible] journey. And so we gotta build this new command. And there were

two two-stars there that were, we had a four-star boss, uh, General Walls

[William E. Ward] and uh, and the Air Force, his [Wards's] chief of staff was an

Air Force two-star. But I was the Director of Military Operations, which, you

know, is-- I mean, you're just, you're thinking about it for every military

event that goes on in the, in the continent of Africa that the US is involved

in, you're gonna be the director and the advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff

and the president, the National Security Council, and the President of the

United States.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

You're gonna be the direct guy. And my boss was the kind of guy that, uh,

general Ward, when I said Walls-- General Ward was the kind of guy, he liked to

do all the diplomatic high stuff, flying around, meeting with heads of state and

senior military. And he left the operational kind of running of things to me.

Which I liked, but it kind of was, uh, it was interesting. Sometimes I would

just wonder, okay, if we do this one, so probably the most prominent one would

be in, 01:26:00um the, the pirates off the coast of Africa, off of Somalia. And, uh, and

we had, and they generally speaking stayed away from US ships. But they would

take these ships. These guys were once fishermen whose fishing industry... I

mean the guys who actually were the pirates, not the businessmen in London and

Somalia, the kingpins in Somalia, the warlords, but the ones who executed, the

actual pirates, you know, they would get word from London who's flagship, what

cargo was on it, what the crew was, all that would come out of London. And

they'd filter it into Somalia.

Visintainer:

So there's somebody in London doing research to let them know what's headed

their way? Wow.

Jackson:

Yeah. And so, and they know what insurance company and all this, and these guys

had been fishermen, but the industrial fishing of China or Korea or Japan had

just about depleted their waters. So they could not-- and so you had an

understanding from an intelligence standpoint of why there was this piracy,

these guys who could execute it. And they were just the lower end of the whole

international cabal. But--

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

So, um, but when they captured the Maersk Alabama, uh, which was a U.S.

Flagship. No way. 'Cause we weren't gonna negotiate with those

guys. So--

Visintainer:

When was this?

Jackson:

This was 2008.

Visintainer:

Okay.

Jackson:

They captured the Maersk Alabama, probably the spring. With a U.S. crew on it.

And, uh, so, um... let me think. Yeah, I think that was under President Bush.

Let me 01:28:00think for a second. 2009? Yeah, it was 2009. I think that was, I think it

was actually one of the first decisions that I had to get out of President

Obama. So that had to be 2009. And so it was very early in his term. So it was

either late winter or early spring of 2009. And there was one guy, uh, the crew

overpowered most of the pirates themselves. Without a gun fight. But, a shot was

fired. One of the pirates was injured. And, uh, three of 'em captured the

captain, of the ship, Captain [Richard] Phillips, and lowered a life boat and

got off the ship. They made a movie outta this.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And, um, and, uh... So now we had, they had a hostage. We had the ship back, but

they had an American hostage. And so myself, um, Admiral [William H.] McRaven

was the head of our Joint Special Operations Command out of Fort Bragg [now Fort

Liberty] here. So he had the Navy Seals and all the special ops guys. But

they're, it was Africa's, AFRICOM's territory. My boss's out galivanting. So

McRaven and I, we had the [Navy] Seals put on standby and they started

rehearsing. And we had -- it's amazing -- we do several rehearsals on paper and

drills. We had done a 01:30:00rehearsal of this on paper the year before. And so we kind

of knew what the plan would be, you know? We didn't know how it [would] end, the

very end of it, but we knew how we would get the right forces to the point that

they could execute a mission. And then once they were at that point, it was up

to them exactly how, but getting them from the States to-- so McRaven and I

reviewed the plan, called up the, the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense and

the Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], and briefed the plan. And we both

agreed that we had a good plan to get the Navy Seals to be able to get the, the

captain back. And we got pretty fast approval from the president. I think that's

what we were all surprised 'cause he's a young senator we were all grizzly old

admirals and generals older than the president, you know? And so we didn't have

a lot of confidence 'cause these things are time sensitive, you know?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And, uh, we, you know. You know it ended sadly in one way, because we killed all

three of the pirates. Killed three of 'em. The one guy that survived was wounded

when the crew took over. And so he, he was medevacked to one of our ships prior

to... And we, Captain Phillips, we brought him home and it was it. So that was

one, um, of a significant event. But I guess the thing is, is that you're making

these life and death decisions.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

That, you know, I would often tell myself that, "Hey, you have to look yourself

in the mirror. And then when you get to the pearly gates, he's the only one that

can pass judgment on your, on your judgment." You know, because there's been a

couple of circumstances where, you know, you've directly impacted whether or not

people have lost their lives or you've taken life. And so, uh, it's-- it's just

one of those things and there's certain people that have to make those hardcore

decisions and to think that you're in that position. And 01:32:00so after two years of

doing that, which was a real from the bottom up, creating a command and all of

the, I mean, bringing tech, I mean we're, we're talking about copper

wires that were put in by the Germans in the 1930s under Hitler that we're

pulling out and pulling fiber optic cable on. So we're literally building

buildings and running this command and making those kinds of decisions and other

decisions which have national significance, you know. And then I was the first

ordered to, or to go to Baghdad [Iraq] to be the chief of staff for our forces

in Iraq for General [Raymond T.] Ordierno. And, but my boss, General Ward, he'd

have had to let me go early, but he had, he had become so, uh, reliant on me --

and it was a new command -- and the Marine Corps promised him a full two years

that he would have me, because they had to convince him to take a Marine. He's

an Army four-star, and they had to convince him to put a Marine in that very

position. And he, and he took me, you know, he probably had some young Army

two-star that he would've liked to put in there, but he took me in on his

command. And so when the Marine Corps said, "Hey, if you leave six months early,

you can go back to war." And which from a, from a Marines standpoint, it

would've been best for me to go back to Baghdad.

Visintainer:

Okay.

Jackson:

And be the chief of staff for General Ordierno, that would open up more

opportunities as a flag officer, more senior rolls. But to get stationed at Camp

Pendleton, my wife's a Californian. It was the alternative. So when General Ward

objected to me leaving six months early, it became, uh, the fallback was the

Marine Corps assigned me to be the Commanding General for Marine Corps

Installations, West. 01:34:00MCI West, which included seven Marine Corps bases out west,

to be the senior guy and be stationed in my wife's hometown in a place where we

had owned homes in the past.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Great place for my kids to go to school. And, and so, and my kids had already, I

had in 2004... In 2002, my oldest son graduated from Fallbrook High. He got, we

came here in [19]98 and he-- my wife said, "I don't know where you're gonna be

for the next four years, but we're going to be here as the kids go to one school."

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And so Brian was on his 10th or 11th school then going into the ninth grade. And

so I deployed to Japan in 2002 as a colonel. And then my other son, Blaine was

gonna graduate in 2004. And so I went overseas and the family stayed on base at

Camp Pendleton. And then I came back and from the Far East, 'cause I didn't do

the initial march to Baghdad. And I joined the unit at Camp Pendleton and we're

ordered back to Iraq. And the theme went on, "I don't know where you're gonna

be, but we're gonna be here." So Blaine graduated in 2004 from Fallbrook High.

He got all his four years at one school. And so they were already locked in. And

the wife, when I went over to Japan, I left her to, uh... She was, had chosen

some land five acres in Fallbrook in 2000. Yeah. 2000. She chose five acres of

this. "There's nothing here, honey." She says,

"Well, I'm designing a house with an architect." I 01:36:00said, "Great! Then I got ordered overseas and left her to build a house. And

so I departed. I came home to help her move in to a house from the base to this

house that she designed with an architect. And she interviewed five or six

general contractors and hired one and stayed on the work site. I was in, doing

things for the nation in Japan, Korea, and Philippines. And I came back home and

helped her move in and then came back from a year without family and was here

for four or five months. And we got redeployed the whole, all the, most of the

combat Marines at Camp Pendleton went back to Iraq in the Al Anbar Province. And

I was the Plans Officer, kind of responsible for getting all the beans, band

aids, bullets, people over there and married up with their equipment on a

timeline, and then be the last man to, to arrive. And I remember

getting there and sitting in the, getting down, getting ready to eat a meal as

my host was showing me where I was gonna sleep that night and all that. And we

get a bunch of incoming rounds and the whole chow hall emptied out, two of us

are sitting there. And I said, "Well, there's no point in running. You might run

into one, you might run into incoming." So we went ahead and finished

our meal while the stuff was coming down. You know, it's random.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You know?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

It's random. And so, when I got stationed back here, the wife had come to live

with me when I, we finally got to live together. That was, there was that time

period from 2002 to 2007 that we never really lived together.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Because I 01:38:00was in Tampa. She stayed here with the boys, and then they both

started college. And, and I got orders to go overseas to Africa command in

Stuttgart. And I said, "Hey, it's your home country. Would you like to come with

me?" So she came over there for the year and a half or so. And the boys were

going to college and doing what college-aged guys do without parents.

Visintainer:

Yep.

Jackson:

To provide any guidance. Jeez. And then, so when I got stationed, uh, the

fallback position from not going over again to Baghdad was here. It was

beautiful for family. And I knew that that would be my twilight, my last tour in

the Marine Corps. So from 2009 to late 2011, I got to be the commanding general

for, we have our mountain warfare training center up in Bridgeport, California.

We have our Marine Corps... The real main Marine Corps ground combat center out

of 29 Palms [California]. Yuma has our air station, Yuma Arizona. Miramar

[Marine Corps Air Station, in San Diego], Camp Pendleton, and the Air Station on

Camp Pendleton. And Barstow [Marine Corps Logistics Base, Barstow California]

was the seventh one. So you're kind of the, you're kind of the governor is the

way I equate it. And each one of those is a city, or in case of Camp Pendleton,

several cities in a county. And so they're, they have their commanding officer,

a colonel. And, so I'm basically the overseer for those to make sure they have

the resources to do their job. And fortunately for me, it was the beginning of

the Obama era where the Economic Recovery Act 01:40:00was, uh, they were looking for

projects and the money was there.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

To fund a lot of things. And so new hospital at Camp Pendleton, well, I got that

new chow hall, new barracks, new childcare centers, all that kind of stuff. I

was getting billions of dollars during my watch to build that stuff.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And so it was, uh, it was a good time. I've told these young Marines now that,

well, it's not gonna be like that for a while. That was during a war. And the

funding was there. We had a happy Congress and they weren't squabbling over

money for the military, but as soon as the wars die down, money to the military

becomes scarce. Um, so, but, uh, so that was a good assignment. I would, I would

say that it was, it was a little bit different than my operational time as a

general officer, but we had a lot of impact.

Visintainer:

So this is really interesting. And I think it's, it's kind of interesting how,

maybe if I'm, if I'm understanding you correctly, maybe it wouldn't have been

your first choice.

Jackson:

Yeah. It wouldn't have been my first choice as a, yeah--

Visintainer:

But in some ways it works out really nicely.

Jackson:

Yeah!

Visintainer:

To be around family--

Jackson:

Because I get to be around family. I get to be-- I meet this university again.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You know, I never, when I, when I left, when I left here in 1986, I mean, there

was nothing here. This was a stinky old chicken farm.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Uh, you know, and, uh, when I come back, your [university] president is Karen

Haynes, right?

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And her husband, gentleman Jim Mickelson is on the staff and doing what he's

doing with ACE program, ACE Scholars [Services, a program for foster youth at

CSUSM]. And I'm the commanding general over there. And I'm a guy with war

credentials and all that kind of stuff. And, uh, and they invite me over here.

And, uh, and I'm just shocked that, you know, I'd 01:42:00driven by a couple times on 78

and seen the building there. And, but she [Haynes] invited me to lunch and then

her husband drove me around his little golf cart, you know, to campus, and I'm

in uniform. And, you know, California's weird. Southern California, this uni--

our uniforms are really welcome. But Northern California is not the same place,

you know. Um, and, uh, and I, and so I, she took me over and showed me the

nascent Veteran Center that it was then, not what this is now. And it was kind

of really a good experience and to meet Karen and see her leadership, which I

would compare with any general that I'd ever served with or--

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And I've served with some of the best this nation has to offer. And, uh, so, so,

um... It's kind of interesting that I could not develop the relationship at San

Jose State. I tried to, I mean of course distance was an enemy. Yeah. You know,

but they kept changing leadership. Even now, I think they're in search of

another president. And that's five or six presidents in, in-- I visited the

campus when I was on active duty, a one-star. And giving presentations, this one

doctor there, Dr. Jonathan Ross, he was really interested. I funded a little

books and furniture for their library. He had a military history library set up

in the history department. And so, and I was funding a scholarship and I wasn't

get-- there was no feedback. There was no feedback. Except for Jonathan. He 01:44:00would try, and he still sends me emails every now and then, but the university

was really like... But anyway, I wasn't gonna work when I retired at first, you know?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Okay. I certainly wasn't gonna be a commuter to San Diego and the freeways just

like trying to get here today. I said, ah, I forgot there's construction. I

should have went this way and that way and, uh, but, um... But, I really hit it

off with that, uh, with the leadership that was here, and I retired and I was

sitting around, enjoying trying to be a gardener, thinking about my next trip,

doing this and that. And I turned down several nice jobs, mainly for my wife

because she didn't want me to work, and I was, you know, sixty, about ready to

get Social Security, max out Social Security, and then, you know, so

why work? And Karen called and said, "Hey, how would you like to be on our

foundation board?" And I said, okay. Man. Was that? I mean, she hooked me for, she had me set up. And I thought, hey,

yeah. And I was on several boards, and so-- none of 'em paid. And, and I was

gonna stay that way. And I'd bought my RV [recreational vehicle]. That was my

retirement gift to myself, you know, nice. On that Mercedes chassis, looking

good, driving down the freeway, camping out, fishing. And we did enjoy it. We do

still have that. So we still enjoy it. And, I got calls from the governor's

office. You know the boards were kind of pretty demanding anyway, and California

State Parks was in a horrible position. They had money that they couldn't

account for. It was mishandled. It wasn't 01:46:00stolen, thank goodness. Nobody lined

their pockets with it, but it was making the headlines and, and, and I couldn't

believe that Parks was so screwed up.

Visintainer:

If you want, I can pause this.

Jackson:

I'll just stop. No, this is.. It's amazing how these people get your number.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

My kids would text, my wife would text, you know, but these people will uh, are

clever.

Visintainer:

Yeah. So that would've been around 2012 if I--

Jackson:

Yeah. That was two thousand, yeah, twelve. Yeah. So, uh, and I'm just, I was

in-- I was kind of amazed. We have no idea what the civilian sector pays for

jobs in the military. As a general officer, you're basically working for nothing.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Because you've, you've maxed out the retirement scale, and because you can

retire when you hit 30 years, you get 75% of your base pay. When you, in two and

a half years, every year there after, so I was at 36 and a half years, so you'd

imagine that I'm 75%, two and a half years times, and so I was already at 95,

97%, something like that.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

So, you're, you are working because you love what you do.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Yeah. I mean, you're, you're, you're totally into what you're doing and it takes

care of your family and all that. So I really didn't want to work. There was one

job that I might have taken, and that was when the Chancellor for the UC system

asked me if I would like to apply to be the President of CSU Maritime Academy.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

Up in Vallejo. And that was in the spring, only two months 01:48:00after I had retired

from the Marine Corps. And it was just, it would've just been the wrong time.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

But our, but I did accept the Rockefeller Family Fund. I got to be known for

some of the speeches that I gave, rather, now that I've seen the video,

rather impassioned speeches about why we go to war, to a group of engineers and

scientists, in particular, this one speech. And I was still in uniform and

giving that speech, and I told them that, I just asked the audience of hundreds.

I said, "Why is it that we're at war in the Middle East?" And you could hear the

word oil echo out. You know? And, uh, and, uh, and I told 'em it was their

responsibility to take us off of being dependent so we don't have to send our

men and women overseas to bleed, you know, and I didn't realize they were

videoing the damn thing. And it pops up all over the internet, right. So, and my job as MCI West, I mean, this is the military is a multi-billions of

dollar industry in California. And as the commanding general of MCI West, you

had access to the governor and Governor [Arnold] Schwarzenegger when I first got

there, Governor [Jerry] Brown, later, you would meet with them once or twice a

year. If there's any issues, like, you know, there's a state park on Camp

Pendleton, it's one of the most profitable parks in the state park system. So

this, it was good. They got the park for a $1 lease of several miles of beach,

you know, and that was gonna come up for negotiation in a couple of years. And

Secretary of the Navy wants real money for it now. It's not just a being a kind

person anymore. It's, uh, so you have mutual interests and the environmental

California Clean Air Act and all this 01:50:00kind of stuff and whether or not we can

meet our tanks can meet your emission standards. No. So what's gonna be the

offset? Things like that.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

So you're up there negotiating and trying to make them aware. And being a

Californian, it also gave me a little bit, um, adopted Californian anyway, it

gave me a little bit different access because I was one of them sort of. And so

when I talked to a senator or to the member of the of the governor's cabinet, it

came out, uh, we had positive discussions. So they knew me in Sacramento. And

they knew I had a green side. And they knew that we were doing all of our green

development on our bases. We were doing a lot. It was funded by the Secretary of

the Navy, Secretary [Ray] Mabus and President Obama. And so, we were being

really green. And so I was speaking the language of the Commander In Chief and

the Secretary of the Navy, being really green, and as my war experience as well

made me have pretty much total buy-in. And my wife's Prius. And the

fact that she put in, I gave her $30,000 and put in solar at our house.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

So, you know, all of those things, you know. And so I got a call from the, from

the governor's office and the Secretary of Natural Resources, if I would please

consider being the director of California State Parks. I said, "Oh, man, that

sounds so good. I could do my job in my RV." And my wife, who's just a natural

member of, at that time of the Sierra Club and the California Native Plant

Society and all that. This, that's actually a job I'll consider. So I told her

about it, and she said, "Well, if that's what you want to do." Which is her

logical, her normal answer too. And so I took that 01:52:00up, I mean, to get the

millions of dollars back in the right place. They had a morale problem. But

they're kind of like military people in as much as, uh, a bunch of really

dedicated people that don't get paid much for their dedication. They work for

the state, the state doesn't realize, matter of fact, I'd say in some of the

assignments that the park rangers have, they live more austere than a military

family would definitely live. And the state doesn't recognize that, but

they're-- If you're a ranger and you've got a series of parks in Carmel,

Monterey, and those beach parks and stuff like that, and the state can't pay you

enough for housing and stuff, things like that.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And some of the more remote places, it's amazing! Old ranch houses that they'll

rehabilitate, you know, and they learn to love what they're doing. You know,

they, they, they do it because they love the great outdoors. They love people,

they love the animals and all of that stuff. And they hear they, "Hey, I want to

give you a pay raise, bring you to Sacramento and put you at my right hand."

"Oh, no sir. I want to be, I want to be right down here

where I am. I don't want to be in Sacramento." Uh, and they, they, they, there's

a very different, uh, they're, they're much like Marines, but they don't have an

up or out sort of ethic or, or, or, or value system. Theirs is, "I'm here. Like,

this is my park, these are my parks, and this is where I want to raise my

family, even if it's a twenty-five mile bus ride for my kids to go to

kindergarten." This is, this is in the, I loved them for that. Great people.

And, and I think they were, I don't want to talk too badly of my predecessor,

but they needed the kind of leadership that's taught and admired in the Marine

Corps. So getting in my, I literally got my RV, we have a state park on-- Border 01:54:00Fields State Park right there at the fence.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Separating Tijuana from us. And we have one all the way on the Oregon border.

Arizona border. Nevada border. And so I just, my wife and I, and I call the

office in, um, and I tell my secretary, Lynn Black, I say, "Lynn, tomorrow I'm

gonna be at Humboldt State Park. You can tell him now." Okay. But I didn't want

her to tell him, you know, a week in adva-- I didn't want him scrambling.

Visintainer:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jackson:

You know, I know how it is in the military when you know the general's gonna

show up. It might be two weeks of scrubbing brass, you know, you know, if they

got two weeks notice, they have two weeks of panic. If

they, if they have twenty-four hours of notice, they only got twenty-four hours

of panic. And you can't fix much that's broken in 24 hours. So that was

great. I, I did enjoy that. I did not want a new career though.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

You know, I told the governor I've got two or three years, and not only that, I

had grown spoiled, as a general officer to make critical decisions, life

decisions. And you cannot do that. I mean, you're a political appointee of the

governor, right?

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And you gotta be approved by, you know, two-thirds of the state senate. So you

had to go through those hearings and all that, so you could not be totally, you

could be what the governor wanted. But maybe not the governor's staff. The

initiative was a little bit frightening. My initiative I think was a little bit

frightening in Sacramento, and I can't stand micromanagers.

Visintainer:

Yeah. How was it frightening?

Jackson:

Uh, say your question again?

Visintainer:

How was it frightening?

Jackson:

Um, who, my initiative? Because I might do something that, uh, that might be

really good for parks, really good for parks' people, but maybe it doesn't suit

the 01:56:00governor's budget agenda. It might be too, you know, and so you did not

want, and you didn't want to be that guy that-- but you wanted to do the right

things, and you had to have people that would kind of support you in, in, in,

in, uh, that you were trying to do the right thing. Now, they could argue, and

you might not be able to do it, but I did not feel that-- the military's

incredible in terms of the responsibilities that I was given. And it was based

on the special trust and confidence that I had built up over, you know, thirty

years of service. And that, I mean that is, you're making really important

decisions affecting people and maybe tens of thousands of people. And so to come

down from that, it was, was, was not ideal.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And you had to come down from that, uh, you know, uh, your ego. Something had

to, had to, had to back off. That you no longer had that much special trust and

confi-- You had some trust and confidence.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

But you didn't have that ultimate special trust, you know, because, you

know. And, uh, and so I, I, I, I decided that certainly I didn't wanna spend any

more time in that environment than fixing what I could fix. So got the budget

money straight, got it all back, started fixing restrooms, started-- I, you

know, I took it like it was a military operation: to develop a campaign plan,

publish it to everybody. To everybody. Put it on the, on the website so every

employee could read it.

Visintainer:

And at some point--

Jackson:

I, you know, I set up a, it still goes, they dropped me off the mailing list. My

wife is still on the mailing list, but it's an email newsletter goes out every

Friday. It's the same thing the Marine Corps does. I still get 'em from the,

from 01:58:00the... from the Chief of Naval Operations. And I get a daily report of

what's important. And then from the Marine Corps, every Friday I get one. You

know, so that when I'm communicating as a member of a community, I'm talking

from some firsthand knowledge. Not all of it, I don't, I'm not nothing secret,

all open source stuff that we can communicate when we're out in our communities.

As a flag officer, you still have certain responsibilities.

Visintainer:

Sure.

Jackson:

That, uh, uh, so yeah. So the civilian world's a little bit different, you know,

and it was kind of... I think you have to, you have to adapt to it though, it's

not gonna adapt to you. And so I, you know, after about two years, I kind of

said, okay, and things are relatively stable here, for you. And, I would, I'm

gonna step down and I was like I'm, I was just ready not to, and my wife one

day, she goes, I was, I was commuting back and forth.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

So I would like fly home on Friday night and maybe Thursday night sometimes, and

then I'd fly out Sunday night back to Sacramento or early Monday morning. And,

you know, and that-- one day she looks at me and she says, "This is just like

you're deployed."

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You know. So I knew it was about time to put in the hat. Those two

things came together, that deployment remark. And I was like, challenged whether

or not I did, I wanted to give up the idea of that special trust and confidence

that I had grown so used to as a military officer.

Visintainer:

Yeah. 02:00:00That makes a lot of sense.

Jackson:

Mm-hmm. So.

Visintainer:

I had a couple questions about Camp Pendleton I wanted to ask you.

Jackson:

Sure.

Visintainer:

One was, I was, I was curious about the base's relationship with the surrounding

North County community and how that changed, how you've seen that change over

time, if it has, maybe it hasn't?

Jackson:

Actually. Um, you know when Oceanside [California] was like shootouts at the O.K

.Corral, not shootouts, but get drunk, go to a strip club, that kind of thing.

In the seventies, it was, it was pretty, pretty harsh. And 'cause the Marine

Corps was, it was, it was-- those were tough times for the Marine Corps and the

city and the development. You didn't have the growth boom that's occurred over

the last forty to fifty years for sure. But, I think it's really good

relationship with the, with the uh, with the community. With the colleges,

community colleges. I think this is a great relationship that Cal State San

Marcos has with the military community in San Diego, writ large. And I think

that Camp Pendleton... I think, I think the region knows that like 65% of the

Marine Corps' combat power is here and you can

add on the Yuma Air Station with it, is here, this is the main war-fighting

engine, and you got similar but smaller in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and

forward deployed in Okinawa, Japan. But they're smaller and they have different

wartime commitments. This is the heavy punch. And these bases, both the

airspace, the sea space and the ground space for training are unmatched in the

world. So you have the finest, this geographic

area, just, just what God put here makes it that way, you know, and you can have

every just about climatic condition 02:02:00within MCI West, with the exception of a

tropical jungle, you know. From the Sierras and our cold weather arctic training

to the desert, to mountains and all this kind of stuff, the beaches. And, I

mean, it's incredible training. And that's why Camp Pendleton, you know, was

initially, what do they call it when the city comes in and takes your property?

They took Camp Pendleton--

Visintainer:

Eminent domain?

Jackson:

Eminent domain. That's how it was. You know, here's $4 million, you're out of

here. The O'Neill family, and they're the ones that developed San Clemente and

all that region up north of San Clemente, you know, big developers, they're

still here. The O'Neil family still, part of it's still here. But that eighteen

miles of coastline, the number of military and military families associated with

it. That, and the Navy, I think this is, we generate billions, like thirty-six

billion dollars annually. And then in the state of California, it's over

fifty-six billion dollars. So--

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Just about one in every eleven or twelve defense dollars comes to California.

Visintainer:

Wow. That's significant.

Jackson:

Yeah. I mean, you considered there's 50 states.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And they pay taxes too.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

So, um, I mean, Vista, the mayors, the, and the, and the San Clemente and, and

Oceanside and San Marcos, they show up at events. They're invitees. They're on

the invitation list to events. The old mayor of Oceanside, he used to

be quite a character, but he was kind of losing it a little bit, and he's a

really nice guy and he's had some strokes and stuff like that, but he'd still

show up, you know? To things. And so I think that both from an economic

development standpoint, and I think Camp Pendleton also felt that during 02:04:00my time

there, that we were really helping San Diego, San Diego County, and the local

communities with our investments that were given through the Economic Recovery

Act. We were employing the citizens out there. It's a, you know, it's a kind of

a domino effect on money spent from the military community here. So I think

there's a really good relationship between the military. And I, and I, and, and

I appreciate it because I don't think every community in California, although

I'm on the governor's military council, and so I get to visit-- matter of fact,

we have a meeting in another week or two. I better look at my calendar up at

Vandenberg Air Force Base. But we meet all over the state where there's military

communities, and we try to tie the, one of the things we try to do is tie the

communities with the military base around them, and a lot of, and the

communities have embraced that to the benefit of both. Because if you have a,

um, a water problem or a waste management problem on your base, well, that's

part of the community's problem too, because you're probably locked into the

system. If you're trying to do renewable energies on the base, that's probably

the community's issue too.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

If the schools aren't properly funded in the communities around the base, then

you're, it's probably the base people are gonna be concerned. The military

families are gonna be concerned, and they're not gonna want to go there if the

schools aren't good schools. And so, I mean, we did a, around both Camp

Pendleton, the Fallbrook Union School, elementary school district, and around

Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles, they were both schools that are

impacted by the military but weren't, were slipping in terms of, oh, quality of

education, quality of facilities, and getting instructors. And some of these 02:06:00places are hardcore. And so the military worked with them to get matching

funding in both of those school districts to, to rebuild schools, to hire

teachers and things like that, that affects quality of life for military

families as well as, you know, the community writ large. So it behooves the

communities to, uh, to be kind of tied in with the bases, and it behooves the

bases to be tied in. And so the commanders normally really recognize that and

are accepted in the community. I have had one negative experience. It was

actually, I was at [employed at] state parks and I was asked to be the

commencement speaker at my high school in Oakland. It's kind of nice. I'm a

retired general coming, and then I got a phone call from them, saying the

principal wanted to make sure that I would not wear my uniform to the

[ceremony]. Now I've been retired for, probably couldn't fit in my uniform and

he should have thought of that. "Don't wear your uniform," basically.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And I'm going, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, wait a minute." The high school

principal's asking a guy who spent thirty-six and a half years in this uniform,

that he doesn't want him to wear it. Now, first of all, I wouldn't have thought

of wearing my uniform to, uh, you know, if it's a military event... No, I still

wouldn't have worn a uniform. Get a new tuxedo. I mean, you're in ship,

tip-shop shape when you're in there. You know, you're you know. I think I've grown a little bit rotund since those days, right.

Gently so. But, uh, and so that uniform is fitted to you,

you know? And so I wouldn't have dreamed of it. But he, it was such an insult. I

said, unless they withdraw that I'm not gonna speak. And so I didn't speak at my

high school. And that was after retirement, and it was a totally unnecessary

thing. 02:08:00But that's the difference. I mean, you'll run into that at the, at

northern, you know. You know, I remember days going to watch the students riot

at Berkeley and all that, but that.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

That was an attitude out of a principal in Oakland and my old alma mater. So,

uh, and that's the only negative that, but I thought that was uh, and I just

told him, I said, "Well, I can't come." I said, because it, it's like you're dishonoring--

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

You want me to deny I am a general.

Visintainer:

That's a huge part of your, your existence--

Jackson:

When you, you know, as I remember Commandant General James Conway going, no

matter what, gentlemen-- all the generals in the Marine Corps get together once

a year, and those who aren't forward deployed anyway, and he says, "I don't want

you all worrying about whether you're a one-star, two-star, three-star,

whatever. You're all just going to be generals and when they put it on your

tombstone, that's what everybody will remember." They don't remember if you're,

whatever, general, general, Lieutenant General.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

And so I thought that was good advice for, you know, and, uh, yeah. But yeah,

it's kind of an interesting, well, let me show you one thing here. I

brought this because my wife told me to bring it, but she's my smartest

counselor. She does these really cool, she doesn't do like

family albums, right?

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

She tells the family story in this, in these, so you can--

Visintainer:

Can I [inaudible]? .

Jackson:

She does these drawings. Yeah. Yeah. So all the drawings you see in this, she

does, there's an old oak tree down by the Santa Margarita River and it's been

chopped and it's been burned, and the top's been blown off in high winds, but

it's just resilient, you know? So she says, that's kind of the story of 02:10:00your family--

Visintainer:

Uh-huh.

Jackson:

Resilience, you know, and so, uh... So you'll see these different

drawings, and then she'll go through and then she's found, it's kind of hard; we

know that on my mother's side, this is my dad's, I mean, you can see how thin

[the family tree is], when you're descendants of slaves, you don't necessarily

get all the way back on the African descendants' side.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

Very far. And this is my dad's little genealogical tree. And then this is my

mother's. And what's interesting is from my mother's side, and this is where my

dad lied on his draft card and said his parents were deceased. And, so

that's my dad as a like 16 year-old. I said, he looks like older than that, and

this is him at the Korean War, and this is kind of his story. And then when I

said he is a boxer, now this is my dad, when I was a senior in high school. Do

you think I'd ever mess with my dad?

Visintainer:

No you can definitely he was a, he was a prize fighter.

Jackson:

But he never lifted weights.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

And this is a newspaper article when he was-- about why he chose to stay

[inaudible]. He was a rated heavyweight fighter, but he chose to stick with the

Army. And in this article there, they asked him why. And he just said it was

more secure. But I only saw him in person fight one time. And he knocked the guy

out with a, and this is his father and his mother. And yeah, that's my oldest

sister and grandmother and my dad's sister. But there's, now it goes over to my

mother's side, and this is my mother as a girl. And this is all seven, there's

very 02:12:00few pictures of all seven of my brothers and sisters. And this is like

third grade Tony right there with his finger in his mouth.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And this is, and this is us in Oakland. This is in Texas. And this is

all seven of the kids.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

Uh, my dad's funeral, I think that's what got us back together. But my

family goes back to the original pioneers on my mother's side of, founding, they

were with Brigham Young's party. And, um, and this tells the story, and one of

the three people were with Brigham Young that were slaves. And my

great-great-great grandfather [Green Flake] was a slave to, that was with that

original Mormon party. And so he becomes a founder. That's my great-grandmother.

There's a couple of pictures in here that are kind of neat. But Green Flake,

that's him, was a slave.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

That came with the original. This tells the story of the original Mormon party

that he was with. And he was, he was a scout. And um, and he-- and um, a road

builder. And he drove Brigham Young's wagon. So when Brigham Young ends up in

Salt Lake, the guy who he says, "This is the place," is my great-great-great

grandfather, Green Flake. Now this is kind of a, this is my, this is Green

Flake's daughter, my great-great-grandmother. This is my great-grandmother. This

is that same great-grandmother with my grandmother, with my mother, with my

older sister. Now, the curious thing is: so far the oldest of each generation is

a woman, right?

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And 02:14:00then now down here, this is a picture with my grandmother: her, my

mother, her; my sister, her right there; her daughter Lonnie, the first of that

generation, and her daughter.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

So for seven consecutive generations, it's all girls.

Visintainer:

That's amazing.

Jackson:

And then finally she broke the mold. She now has a son, which is the first of

that generation. And this is another curious thing. This is my great-great

grandfather, one of them. And he's Mexican. And he changed his name to George Stevens.

Visintainer:

Okay.

Jackson:

It doesn't show up much in my DNA, less than 1%. So my family has

always had this knowledge. And then my wife got really into it. And then, and

Green Flake-- This is a statue of Brigham Young, which is in downtown Salt Lake

City, if you've ever been there.

Visintainer:

I've never been.

Jackson:

And in it, they list all of the original pioneers. And then down in a corner it

has the three slaves, and which includes my great-great-great grandfather, Green

Flake, you know. And, um, so he becomes the oldest living member of the original

Mormon pioneers. Of the original ones. And so he's at the Jubilee, the 50th

anniversary, he gets invited back from his farm in Idaho to be an honored guest

as the oldest living.

Visintainer:

Wow.

Jackson:

And so, and here this lady stands up, this is from the Salt Lake Union Tribune

of 1903 or 02:16:00something like that when he's there. And [the lady] asked him what

it's like to be a slave. And so we actually have in quotes from the Tribune what

it was like. 'Cause he was born in 1828. So, so that was kind of curious. And so

where they did make a marker at a park, Pioneer Park. This marker was there, and

somebody tore it down years ago. And I took my sons to see it with my mother,

and this is his tombstone, which is kind of cool.

Visintainer:

Mm-hmm.

Jackson:

And, uh, so somebody tore this down, and then, so this-- It was amazing, this

summer, last summer past, they finally-- that's my family reunion, right? This

picture right here, that's my sister and aunt. They finally built this thing.

Look how small they look. Over a 10-foot statue of Green Flake now is in the,

the historic park, um, Heritage Park of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

He's got this oversized statue of Green is finally made the, besides the

footnote. But anyway, that was just in July I think they commemorated that

statue. So that's part of what gives Jackson strength.

Visintainer:

Yes.

Jackson:

You know, is knowing that you have a, you know, a big history with this.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Are we over time?

Visintainer:

Uh, we-- we we're actually almost out of [camera] battery strength. We've talked for a while, so I think it's as good a place of any is to

end the interview. I actually have so many more questions for you, but--

Jackson:

That's all right.

Visintainer:

We'll run out of, we're run out of battery so--

Jackson:

That's okay. It was fun to talk.

Visintainer:

It is a real pleasure to have you--

Jackson:

Be hoarse the rest of the day.

Visintainer:

Yeah. It's a pleasure to have you visit us and--

Jackson:

Yeah, well thanks for inviting me to recall some good things and, you know.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

There were no real flashbacks, you know?

Visintainer:

Yep.

Jackson:

It can 02:18:00happen though. Every now and then, you know.

Visintainer:

Yeah.

Jackson:

Oh man.

Visintainer:

Well, thank you again.

Jackson:

Okay. Hopefully that was--

Visintainer:

I'm gonna go ahead and end the interview.