https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment43
Segment Synopsis: Jackson describes his childhood, growing up in a military family that moved around the world, as well as his schooling, meals, and football recruitment. He also describes what life is like on military bases, and how he was fortunate to grow up at the time that he did, with opportunity provided by the sacrifices people made during the civil rights movement.
Keywords: Germany; Hawaii; Houston, Texas; Oakland, California; civil rights movement; military base life; military family
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment937
Segment Synopsis: Jackson speaks to his father's military experience and the challenges his father faced as a Black enlisted soldier, as well as his father's feelings on Jackson joining the Marine Corps. Jackson recalls the part of his childhood spent in Houston and nearby Fort Hood. He describes the segregated nature of the area, and participating in a sit-in at a local drug store. Jackson also recalls his sister's refusal to move to the back of the bus, fighting in high school and being picked on because of his accent, and speaks to his idea of equality vs. equity, using a metaphor for starting life with a backpack.
Keywords: General Frank E. Petersen; Houston, Texas; enlisted Black soldier experience; racism
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment2290
Segment Synopsis: Jackson discusses his father's and brother's deployments, including why his brother was drafted to fight in Vietnam and his brother's medical evacuation to San Francisco.
Subjects: Butte College; California State University Chico; Korean War; Matt Jackson; Vietnam War; World War II; drafts and deferments; medical evacuations
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment2515
Segment Synopsis: Jackson discusses how support systems evolved in the armed services for deployed soldiers from his father experience to his own. Jackson discusses informal and formal structures and how military spouses play a role in supporting each other. Jackson also discusses the necessity of taking care of military families and how that impacts combat ability.
Keywords: Army; Key Volunteer Program; Marine Corps; Navy; Ombudsman Program; military spouses
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment2987
Segment Synopsis: Jackson recounts meeting his wife, Sue, at San Jose State University and their courtship. Jackson describes interracial dating at the time and their family's reactions, and recall his ring-buying expedition which ended with a job. Jackson speaks to his work in the insurance industry, and decision to quit that job and enlist in the Marine Corps, and later to re-enlist.
Keywords: Mike Anderson Agency; Paul Barriger; Sue Jackson; U.S.S. Mayaguez; Vietnam War; courtship; enlistment; interracial relationships; re-enlistment
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment4424
Segment Synopsis: Jackson describes his work towards the end of his career, including as Deputy Commanding General for MARCENT [Marine Corps Forces Central Command], where Jackson and his staff - especially civilian scientist Susan Alderson - were instrumental in getting MRAPs [mine resistant, ambush protected vehicles] to forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Keywords: MARCENT; MRAPs; Susan Alderson
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment5040
Segment Synopsis: Jackson recalls his work as the first Director of Military Operations and Logistics for the newly created United States Africa Command, and recalls in detail piracy around the Horn of Africa, and operations resulting from Somali pirates capturing of the U.S. cargo ship Maersk Alabama in 2009.
Keywords: AFRICOM; Maersk Alabama; Somalia; piracy
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment5520
Segment Synopsis: Jackson recounts a career fork where he could have gone back to Iraq to be a chief of staff, but instead ended up as Commanding General for Marine Corps Installation West (MCI West). Jackson recounts his previous times at Camp Pendleton as a colonel and his family's decision to build a house in Fallbrook while Jackson was deployed to various places including Japan and Iraq. Jackson also recalls getting shelled while eating in a mess hall in Al Anbar Governate in Iraq.
Keywords: Camp Pendleton; Fallbrook, California; Marine Corps Installation West
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment6078
Segment Synopsis: Jackson recalls returning to the area and getting acquainted with former university President Karen Haynes and joining the CSUSM Foundation's board. Jackson describes not desiring to work after his retirement from the military, and why he decided to go to work for California State Parks as their director. Jackson also discusses the similarity and differences between working in the military and parks, and discusses his decision to leave California State Parks.
Keywords: CSUSM; California State Parks; Jim Mickelson; Karen Haynes
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment7203
Segment Synopsis: Jackson discusses how Camp Pendleton specifically and military bases in general integrate with their surrounding communities. Jackson also discusses how federal aid and military projects have an effect on the surrounding community. Jackson recounts a negative experience with an invitation to speak at his high school alma mater where he was asked not to wear his uniform.
Keywords: Camp Pendleton; Economic Recovery Act; base-community relationships; federal aid; prejudice towards servicemen
https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu%2Fohms-viewer%2Frender.php%3Fcachefile%3DJacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml#segment7757
Segment Synopsis: Jackson shows a family history album that his wife, Sue, created, and discusses his family tree, his father's prize fighting career, his grandparents, siblings and extended family. Jackson recounts his mother's side of the family history and their ancestor Green Flake, who was an enslaved man who drove Brigham Young's wagon on the Mormon exodus to Salt Lake City. Jackson speaks to the presence Green Flake has left in history.
Keywords: Brigham Young; Green Flake; Jackson family; Mormonism; Salt Lake City; boxing; enslaved peoples; family history; monuments
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.
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
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,
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,"
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.
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.
02:20:00