MAJ JAMES "DOC" CRABTREE
___I was born August 27th 1963 at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Since my father was an Air Force NCO I found myself living in South Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Alaska, and California, all BEFORE I even joined the Army.
___I enlisted in the U.S. Army after a recruiter showed me a book describing all the different branches... I was taken with the emblem of the Air Defense Artillery: crossed cannons with a missile. The photograph in the book had a crewman climbing on a HAWK launcher. "That looks cool." I told the recruiter. "Can I learn electronics in ADA?"
___"Sure!"
___"And can I get stationed in a lot of different places?"
___"Of course."
___"And on top of that I get an enlistment bonus?"
___"You bet!"
___It would be a while before my illusions would be shattered. After I completed basic training at the end of 1982, I learned that Air Defenders primarily got stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, Germany, and Korea. And the electronics I dealt with in my job consisted of dragging a 100 lb cable through the desert, then burying it.
___But my time spent with Alpha Battery, 1/7 ADA also shaped me up as a soldier. I sweated through several EDREs as we were part of the Rapid Deployment Force and could find ourselves on our way to any point in the world within a few hours. I learned my job as an FCO and might have got to shoot a missile if I weren't transferred to Charlie Battery, 2/43 ADA first.
___2/43 was one of the first Patriot units, and I became a launcher crewman. I also learned to be a Stinger gunner, a job that fascinated me. At the time, Stinger missiles in the hands of the Afghans were devastating the Soviet occupiers in central Asia. If I had known abour Stinger in high school I would enlisted for it. In 1985 we were deployed to Germany.
___Germany was great! The country was marvelous, the people were friendly, and the area we were assigned to outside of Hanau was a marvelous new facility. The only bad thing about it was the fact that the Soviets were just on the other side of the line... and we weren't expected to survive the second wave of enemy aircraft and missiles if World War III were to break out.
___While in Germany I began to develop my drawing skills. It helped that I was in a unit filled with all sorts of characters (we were known as "Crude n' Cruel" Battery), although I had no outlet for my creativity other than the bulletin board.
___After I did my time in Germany I ETSed and went back to the States. Little did I know that I had won an active-duty ROTC scholarship. Despite no longer being on active-duty, I now had another military obligation.
___While at Wright State University I worked for the campus newspaper, The Daily Guardian. The experience I gained there, learning to write properly, run a small business, and survive political machinations, have served me well. It was cartooning, though, that really earned me a reputation. I was known as THE UGLY CARTOONIST because of my criticism of Arab terrorism. Apparently I was too stupid to realize that they were simply anti-zionist patriots!
___I did a cartoon strip called "Joy," which was ten times better than anything the Guardian had ever run, but it had one disadvantage: It was not a "liberal" strip. I made fun of the peaceniks and how they were stooges of the Soviet Union. I had fun and the leftists had fits.
___I returned to Fort Bliss in 1989 in order to attend the Officer Basic Course as a Second Lieutenant.
___Upon completion of OBC I was assigned to Bravo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 1st ADA (HAWK). The newly-streamlined HAWK system was almost a pleasure to operate. As luck would have it, 2-1 ADA was one of the units selected for deployment to Saudi Arabia as part of Desert Shield.
___I won't dwell long on the Gulf War, as these are included in a manuscript I wrote called "Iraq and Back." It was something of an adventure since we lost a soldier to a vehicle accident, crossed into Iraq as "Point Battery" for the battalion, and accidently fired a HAWK missile during a systems check (despite persistent rumors to the contrary, I was not the TCO who launched it). I drew quite a bit, and began to feel confident in my skills. I also began writing more.
___After our return to Fort Bliss and the completion of my time as a platoon leader, I was transferred to the post General Staff as an Assistant Secretary to the General Staff. I met a lot of great people there and enjoyed the Army, but with the election of Bill Clinton and our seemingly unending commitment to SWA I left the Army to pursue my Master's Degree.
___Back at Wright State I completed my graduate work and while I was at it joined the Ohio National Guard unit I was once a member of, the 2nd Battalion, 174th ADA (HAWK). I also went to work at the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, although not as part of the historical staff but rather as an IMAX projectionist.
___I completed my first two books during this period, "Guerrilla Air Defense" and "On Air Defense," both of which contained illustrations that I did. The work that I did later contributed to my 5X (Military Historian) skill identifier.
___I met my wife during this period as well, Heidi, and was told that with the Army being what it was they would be happy to have me back as a captain. And so, with my lovely wife and grouchy cat in tow, I moved yet again back to Fort Bliss.
___No sooner had I returned to 11th ADA Brigade in 1998 than I found myself wrapped up with the Presidential Impeachment and the corresponding Operation Desert Fox. After serving briefly in the S-3 shop of 11th ADA Brigade I was sent to 3-43 ADA (Patriot) to be an Operations Center OIC during our five-month rotation to the Middle East. I served as the S-4 upon 3-43 ADA's return and helped plan the logistics for a unit exercise in Yuma Arizona in 2000.
I met former president George Bush during a ceremony in 1998
___I started a new cartoon strip in 1998, Buster's Battery (a "buster" is someone who served in Patriot during the Gulf War) and it has been posted in both the post newspaper and on our website. Because of deployments I can rightly say that Buster's Battery is read all over the world, from Fort Bliss to Kuwait City to Pusan.
___I became the HHB USACAS commander in May 2001 and had the fun of being the "B.C." there until October 2002. Post runs, mobilization ranges, school support, PT tests, irate users... I wouldn't trade the time I spent there for anything.
___Following my command I was sent to Fort Meade where I went to the Defense Information School, or DINFOS. Someone thought I would make a great Public Affairs Officer! Little do they know. While there I got to see D.C. and some of the sites around Maryland.
Heidi and I got to shake George W. Bush's hand when he visited Fort Bliss in 2002
___On December 2nd, 2003 I was promoted to MAJOR! My wife asked me "What, Major Pain-in-the-Butt, Major Pest, Major Aggravation...?"
An unofficial photo from deep within FORSCOM HQ...
___Following the gig at FORSCOM I went to XVIII Airborne Corps in November 2004... just in time to go with the staff for the 2005 deployment to Iraq. While there I did a cartoon for the Scimitar called Buster's Baghdad (of course!). Went on leave to Germany to see Heidi and we got to go to Hawaii in January 2006, when I got back.
___Currently, I am still assigned to XVIII ABN Corps at Fort Bragg.
James penned an argument for an Air Defender's badge in
An ADA Combat Badge? James' Gulf War Diaries
are also available online, although they're hard to read because they're in reverse order.
If you go back even further you can read another online article called
A Century Of Air Defense written for the 2000 ADA Yearbook. If interested in Air Defense Artillery history and theory try James Crabtree's book On Air Defense Artillery,
available from Amazon.com
or at Barnes and Noble.com. His other book, Guerrilla Air Defense is available atSpytech.
James has also done book reviews on:
The Two Georges
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Communism
Also see Heidi's review on The Angry Clam. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss your money goodbye... for a clam!!!
