Tyler Jewkes, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by John C. Worsencroft, December 14, 2009: Saving the Legacy tape no. IA-26

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Tyler Jewke 14 D c m r 2009 TJ: I don't know if it was necessarily something that was huge for my family. My tw sisters went to college, at least to get associate's degrees. It was important to get good grades, in the sense of being able to get a scholarship into college, but we're a family f usually a lot of physical labor, or hard labor, so it wasn't really get a college degree and have these white collar jobs, more of a blue collar atmosphere. So wasn't that much stress, but it was definitely something that I wanted. I thought personally for myself I always saw myself sitting in an office rather than outside digging trenches (laughs). So I just figured it'd be great to go to college and it was definitely one of the goals that I had. JCW: So what was it about maybe the Guard specifically that piqued your interest regarding college? T J: I think the culture in Richfield, in the whole Sevier County area, small community, lots of small people that. . .I guess not small people, but a lot of people down there that joined the National Guard there in the community of just total in the entire valley around probably 20,000 people. So when people join the National Guard you know most of those families, you know most of the people. When I signed up there were around, I'd say, five to six people in my graduating class-which again is only about 100 people-that signed. So it's just that culture and atmosphere that you join the National Guard because that's what's available in Richfield. You don't really know that there's a whole lot of other options to go regular Army or to even join other units outside of Richfield. That was a lot of the reason why I decided to go there, do field artillery, because that's what everybody did. So you just kind of went along with everything else. JCW: So there's no, like, no Marine Corps recruiter in that area? Or a Navy recruiter? 3