James Yarbrough interviewed by Tucker Wilson, 2015
INTERVIEW LOG
Name of person interviewed: James Yarbrough
Researcher: Tucker Wilson
Date of interview: 5/30/15
Location of interview: Pendleton, OR
General description: Interview with James Yarbrough about his service during the Iraqi Freedom War.
Length of interview: 46:50
Index:
0:00-2:06 Growing up and enlistment
2:06-14:34 Training and service duties
14:34-30:47 Life and travel and service stories
30:47-33:19 Injury
33:19-34:45 More recollections
34:45-46:50 Leaving the military and life after the service
Mr. James Yarbrough Interviewed by Tucker Wilson, 2015
James Yarbrough was born in Portland, Oregon and raised in Payette, Idaho. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, James was spurred into action. At twenty-one years old, and having been unemployed for the previous six months, he enlisted in the Navy. From there, he went to boot camp in Chicago, where he spent the first three days without sleep, doing mountains of paperwork. Afterwards it was a lot of pushups and tests every week, as James put it.
Upon graduating from boot camp, he was moved to Pensacola, Florida. He was undesignated at that point, meaning he didn’t yet have a job. He began learning how to work on planes there, but he mostly spent the three months in Florida “learning how to be undesignated.”
After that he went to his first command in Whidbey Island, Washington at VAQ-141, also known as the “Shadowhawks,” and was an E2 Undesignated Airman, doing whatever needed to be done to the aircraft. He eventually became a plane captain, working directly for the pilots.
Eventually, James went back to Florida and went through three or four months of schooling in order to become a parachute rigger, a position whose motto was “We’re the last to let you down.” He would later go back down again for further training, and would be down there for Hurricane Katrina.
Mr. Yarbrough was then sent to China Lake, California at VX-41, the “Dust Devils.” There he was a Parachute Rigger, 3rd Class, and worked with liquid oxygen in ejection seats and packed life rafts, parachutes, and other survival gear inside of the seat pans. While working there, a miscommunication with a fellow rigger caused James to be blown across the flight deck fifty feet with 120 pounds of chains on him. This injury is what eventually led to his leaving the military.
James got to live aboard huge Navy ships, which he said were gigantic and very easy to get lost in. He also got to visit several places in Europe including Greece, where the bus he was riding in was surrounded from all sides by anti-war picketers. He says that being able to see his family more frequently than most helped him with getting through the tough times, as did his wife’s frequent letters in boot camp.
James now lives in Pendleton with his wife and three kids and does his best to represent what he stands for by helping his community, including shoveling the snow off of his neighborhood’s sidewalks. Despite hardships and dealing with symptoms of PTSD, he still has the utmost respect for the military.
I asked him if he would do his life all over again the same way if he could, and he said that he would, and even today he still has the urge to serve his country.