La Sage, Timothy OH1535
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Wisconsin Veterans Museum Research Center Transcript of an Oral History Interview with TIMOTHY LA SAGE Fast Company/Instructor/Scout Sniper/Military Policeman, Marine Corps, War on Terror 2012 OH 1535 OH 1535 La Sage, Timothy., (b.1975). Oral History Interview, 2012. Approximate Length: 6 hours 15 minutes Contact WVM Research Center for access to original recording . Abstract: Timothy La Sage discusses his service with the Marine Corps Security Force Battalion, Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams [FAST]; the 2 nd Battalion, 4 th Marines; and the 2 nd Battalion, 5 th Marines. He describes receiving instruction at Marine Combat Training and Infantry Training Battalion as well as at Security Force School. La Sage outlines his time spent in the FAST company and details the training required for such work. He discusses his deployment with the 2nd Battalion, 4 th Marines to Okinawa Japan at Camp Hansen as part of a Marine Expeditionary Unit Special Operations Capable [MEU(SOC)], instructing Scout Sniper and Military Operation in Urban Terrain (MOUT) courses as well as working as a School of Infantry instructor at Camp Geiger [North Carolina]. La Sage recounts how he received 2 Navy Achievement Medals. La Sage describes his enlistment with the 2 nd Battalion, 5 th Marines in the Fox Company during which he received a Humanitarian Ribbon and the Fleet Assistance Program at Camp Pendleton [California], where he served with the Military Police Company. La Sage then discusses his first deployment to Iraq in 2003 with the 2 nd Battalion, 5 th Marines, including leading the invasion with the Division React Platoon, taking Baghdad, and living in the town of Rumaythah. He remembers the living conditions which his platoon was subjected to due to their advanced position. He also describes his second deployment to Iraq in 2004 and his time spent in Ramadi with a scout sniper platoon. Additionally, La Sage comments on base life at Camp Pendleton and the impact of the military lifestyle on his family. Biographical Sketch : Timothy La Sage (b. 1975) served with the Marine Corps Security Force Battalion, FAST Company from 1993-1996. He then reenlisted in the Marine Corps, serving with the 2 nd Battalion, 4 th Marines as they deployed to Camp Hansen [Okinawa, Japan] and then worked as an instructor at Camp Pendleton [California] and Camp Geiger [North Carolina]. La Sage served with the 2 nd Battalion, 5 th Marines from 2000-2006, deploying to Okinawa, Japan; East Timor; and Iraq twice, in 2003 and 2004. He retired from the Marine Corps in 2014. Interviewed by Rick Berry, 2012. Transcribed by the Audio Transcription Center, 2015. Reviewed by Claire Steffen, 2015. Abstract written by Claire Steffen, 2015. ii Interview Transcript: [Tape 1] Berry: This interview is with Tim La Sage, who served with the United States Marines during the War on Terror. This interview is being conducted at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum at the following address: 30 West Mifflin Street, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703, on the following date: January 30, 2012. The interviewer is Rick Berry. [break in recording][00:00:37] Berry: Tim, thank you for agreeing to do this oral history interview. Can you tell us about your background and life circumstances before you entered military service? La Sage: Yes, sir, thank you for having me here. Growing up, before I joined the service, everybody thinks it’s a normal childhood. I guess reflecting back now, I think there was a lot of assets that I was afforded, other than other people I guess. I grew up, the suburbs of Wisconsin, mostly in Sussex and Lannon area, and then I moved to Germantown, Wisconsin, like I said, all suburbs area. I grew up with my house up against the woods, so I spent a lot of time outside or in the woods or whatever, with my brothers. I have Pete, who is my brother, older by two and a half years, and I have younger brothers as well, two younger brothers and a sister. I come from a divorced family and lived with my stepdad and real mom, and my father and family lived also nearby in Wisconsin, in the Waukesha area primarily. Grew up playing sports, grew up wrestling, since I was about third grade and on. Played soccer as I got a little bit older, and baseball. Really liked sports, really liked to be out and about, and enjoyed the friendships and everything, outside the house. Not for any particular reason, but just really excelled at some of those sports. My stepdad had a business, which was interior and exterior design, so I believe we were the free labor, me and my brothers, and it taught us a lot about working for our money. He paid us a small amount here and there, but it was nice to have that coming in, knowing that I was learning a skill. At the time, it was tough work, carrying shingles up to a roof or sanding windows, hanging off a ledge, or laying tile, you know all things you would pay somebody pretty well to do, you know I was able to learn as a kid, grumbling along the way, I imagine. It was still really good to learn and to do that stuff. I did end up getting a job at Stark Oldsmobile and Dodge in Menomonee Falls, driving cars and washing cars and being a porter, and driving down to Six Mile 1 Road, I think it’s called, or whatever, going down towards Illinois, where there’s an auction. They would buy cars for the dealership, and we’d all go down in a van and pick cars up and bring them back to the dealership, you know as I got old enough. Stuff like that was a lot of fun to me. It seemed like traveling, even though you’re going about twenty minutes outside of Milwaukee. I had a good upbringing, went to St. Johns Lannon Lutheran School and up until sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, I went to Kennedy Middle School, because we moved, and that was in Germantown, Wisconsin, the town school. After that, I was still living in Germantown, the same place. Me and my brother went to Kettle Moraine Lutheran, which is a grade school, now is in Jackson, Wisconsin, a small town outside of West Bend. It’s a really nice school. Both those Lutheran schools, it’s really nice knowing that, you know, I’ve been in the military now, almost nineteen years, and I’m just coming back to Wisconsin, and people that I went to school with, it’s a very tight-knit group, they’re all still friends. The class, a couple classes up and a couple classes down, everybody is still friends, they get together and their families know each other and stuff, so it’s nice coming back to that good upbringing. Berry: When did you graduate from high school, year-wise? La Sage: I graduated in 1993. I could have graduated a little bit early. I was trying to, because I enlisted, or I signed the papers to join the Marine Corps, in August of ’92, and that was my junior year. I was doing all right, I was a B and C student, type of thing, and that was definitely by choice. I think I pretty much accepted that I could be, for me, that constitutes an average student, and yet I could still work or I could go out and play. I had a decent car at the time, and I’d go out and cruise around and stuff and maintain that average grade type stuff, and that was acceptable for me. I had an older brother who graduated a couple years ahead of me, he was a senior when I was a freshman. He started his college career, and I noticed how hard he worked and he wasn’t focused and stuff. So I was happy graduating in ’93 with Bs and Cs, and knowing I was going to go into the military after that. Berry: How did you come to choose the Marine Corps? La Sage: Me choosing the Marine Corps, sometimes I say the Marine Corps chose me. I went with my brother and a good friend of mine, Dave Brazee [sp?], a Wisconsin kid, we went to school together, all of us did, and Dave and I weren’t classmates. He was a little bit older than I. We went down, because my brother, now a year or two, couple years into college, I believe he was going to WCTC, out of—I don’t even know if it’s Waukesha or something like that. He was mediocre going through college, wasn’t focused and stuff like that, so he was going to join the Army, and my friend and I said okay, we’ll join the Army too and we’ll all go together. 2 So we went down to the recruiters and lo and behold, the math said I wasn’t old enough yet but those two were, so they both enlisted and went, and since I was left hanging, a Marine recruiter outside the mall, snagged me up, and lo and behold, in the blink of an eye, I remember him sitting in my living room and I was signing papers with my mother, because I was seventeen and a half at the time. I did some tests and all that stuff and was in the delayed entry program for about a year, it was just shy of, I believe, before I went for boot camp.