Soldiers pay back volunteers

By Nomee Landis
Staff writer

There hasn’t been a cow milked in this old barn in 15 years, and it shows.

Cobwebs cling to the cinder block walls. Dust, years deep, carpets the concrete floors. Mud daubers have built dirt tunnels on the walls and ceilings.

Staff photo by Brian Thorpe

Staff Sgt. Derek Burd, right, and Capt. Martin Schmidt help farmer Carlton Spillman repair his gate.

Carlton Spillman, the 68-year-old farmer who owns this farm not far from Asheboro, used to spend about 16 hours a day in here milking. Now four Special Forces students -- Capts. Aaron Duncan and Martin Schmidt and Staff Sgts. Lamont Townsend and Derek Burd -- will spend the next eight hours or so cleaning it up.

Spillman pulls his pickup truck around by the door, hands the men wrenches and ratchets and tells them to dismantle the rusty pipe system hanging from the ceiling.

The soldiers grab the tools and push brooms and get to work. The dust quickly coats their clothes. Clanging rings from the barn.

The soldiers, all members of student ODA 924, have just completed Robin Sage, the final field exercise of the Special Forces Qualification Course. The other members of their team have jobs to do today as well. A few have gone to Farmer School. Others have gone to a chicken farm up the road.

After each class of Robin Sage, soldiers will spend one or two days on these civil affairs projects.

In the country around the Uwharrie National Forest, where Robin Sage is staged four times a year, the 131 soldiers of this class of Robin Sage are helping out, in schools, in towns and on farms.

The work details are one of the ways that the soldiers and the army repay the civilians who provide support during Robin Sage, an unconventional warfare exercise.

The civilians are a critical part of Robin Sage, says Master Sgt. Tim Moore, the cadre leader and evaluator for ODA 924. It is Moore’s job to coordinate the auxiliary for his classes.

‘‘This is the perfect place to do this training,” Moore says. ‘‘Everybody is so willing to help. You have people coming out of the woodwork to volunteer. All the law enforcement, they like to play, and they are all involved.”

About 300 civilians volunteer their time, their vehicles, their houses and their knowledge of the area to students going through Robin Sage.

Law enforcement officials set up road blocks during some missions. And they reassure frantic callers that the men they have seen with automatic weapons trying to blow up a bridge or ambush a truck are really just Special Forces students trying to get through training.

The civilians play the roles of underground resistance during the exercise, the people who support the guerrillas, trying to reinstate democracy in a fictional country called Pineland. About 150 of them have helped out this time.

Spillman says he has offered his land and his services to the army since the 1960s. Over the years, he’s given the soldiers fresh milk to drink. He provided ODA 924 with 60 eggs one day in the field. He has let them parachute onto his fields and land their helicopters there, too. Soldiers used to fish from his pond up the hill from the barn.

One time, Spillman says, they pulled 10 nice ones from the water. They were going to wrap them up and cook them in the fire, Spillman says. ‘‘I told them it would be a whole lot better if they fried ’em. Well, they got those fish, rolled ’em in cornmeal. But somehow, the oil splattered out in the fire, and I hear they just about burnt the camp down.”

Spillman says he’s seen a blindfolded man interrogated in his barn. He’s seen a drunk soldier pass out in his barn.

It has been a good relationship, he says, between him and the military.

Except for one period of time. ‘‘In the 1970s, the drinkin’ and dopin’ got so bad, I had to kick ’em out,” Spillman says.

But things have changed since then, he says. Spillman, and now his son, Randy Spillman, welcome the soldiers.

Randy Spillman lives on the farm as well, where they raise beef cattle and wheat and oats now. He says he remembers as far back as 1969, the 82nd Airborne Division used to parachute into the fields. ‘‘Anymore, nobody uses it but Robin Sage.”

Randy Spillman says during Robin Sage, he ferries the students to drop zones in his truck and helps them with resupply efforts. Often, Randy says, the soldiers need him for night missions, making for long days.

In exchange, the students help out on the farm for a day or two. The medics help them vaccinate their cattle and treat them for worms and conjunctivitis. Others, like the four who work today, help clean up, fix fences and such.

Chief Warrant Officer Kirk Hylton, who has coordinated five student A-teams during this class, says some of members of this civilian auxiliary have kept lists of all of the soldiers who they have helped. Some families have played roles in Robin Sage for three generations. And some still keep in touch with soldiers.

He has seen convenience store clerks accept fake Pineland money, called Don, from students as payment for snacks and coffee. They are later reimbursed in American dollars, he says.

Hylton says Robin Sage provides a entertainment and excitement in this quiet country.

Darrell Leonard thinks there’s more to it than fun for many auxiliary. Leonard, of Thomasville, works at the Peddycord FAC Air Museum in Asheboro. The museum and an adjoining airfield were used during ODA 924’s final mission of Robin Sage.

Leonard says the museum is dedicated to the memory of veterans from World War II to the present. The soldiers need a place to train, he says, and they are happy to oblige.

‘‘In this day and age, being patriotic is corny,” Leonard says. ‘‘But I like the phrase.”

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