CW3 Christopher Hoaglin

CW3 Christopher Hoaglin sat down with me for Heroes I Know.

14 Juliet. HHB 5-52. Private Hoaglin. I was a brand new first sergeant. I did not even have a diamond yet. He was my third first sergeant in the Army.

Hastings, Michigan. About six hours from Knox. Blue collar. Factory town. He watched his parents work just to get back to work. Freshman year he knew he was joining.

Senior year his girlfriend got pregnant. She is still his wife. They married two weeks before he shipped. He never walked across the stage. They faxed the diploma to the recruiter. Chris Jr was born in AIT.

Trailer. Three brothers. Three sisters. A wood stove inside a trailer. Football. Wrestling. Boxing. He roofed at eighty-five pounds with eighty-pound bundles of shingles. First airplane ride was to basic.

Day two or three he told a drill sergeant he was done. Drill Sergeant Peacock pulled him in. No yelling. Get out and pay it all back. Or go back to training. He had a kid on the way. He went back. One hundred thirty-two pounds. Two miles in about twelve and a half minutes. The hard part was the rules and 0530.

He met Chief Eduardo Batista at the TCS. 140 Alpha. That became the long goal. Air Assault as a PFC. Jump school as a CW2. He says do those things when you are young.

Tiffany and the soldiers still come over for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Fourteen or fifteen years since I had seen him. I remember Cervantes as commander. Purdue and Hockenberry as first sergeants. That unit was his best one. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.