BROOKINGS – “Back when we started, it wasn’t Vietnam; it was the Cold War era; we trained for Germany, the Fulda Gap. That was the big key then, that if something happened, we’d be deployed over there. That was all of our training scenarios.”

When Col. Spencer “Spence” Hawley, South Dakota Army National Guard (Retired), was commissioned a “butter bar” second lieutenant and field artillery specialist back in 1975, that was the way he saw the threat to America and the NATO nations of Western Europe: it would come  from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe. Add to that the potential threat to South Korea by North Korea; the potential arenas for a hot war (or wars) were in Europe and Korea. When he retired 30 years later, the “big key” for the Guard had shifted to the Middle East and the war on terrorism. 

Hawley, 68, was born in Armour. His family moved to Brookings when he was 5 years old. He grew up here, graduating from Brookings High School in 1971. He went on to South Dakota State University, studying political science and economics. He enrolled in Army ROTC; at that time the first year was mandatory. However, he stayed enrolled and as noted above got his commission and began his military career. 

Hawley attended the officer basic course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He still had a Reserve commitment, so he returned to Brookings and joined an artillery brigade in eastern South Dakota; it had a headquarters and two battalions of artillery. His first assignment was with B Battery in Watertown, where one of those battalions was based.

Three command opportunities

“You work as a forward observer,” Hawley explained of his first assignment. “Then you go a couple years as a fire direction officer, then you go as executive officer.

“We were special weapons qualified. They had an 8-inch tactical nuclear round. We had a special weapons team and we trained on how to assemble that for the correct yield they would need. We practiced all that. It was a different time back then.”

He commanded Alpha Battery, an 8-inch firing battery in Sisseton, for three years. He came back to command the service battery and then went to the battalion staff. With time came regular promotions.

“I had the opportunity to be a battalion commander for three separate weapons systems, which is kind of neat,” Hawley said. He was then lieutenant colonel. One battalion was outfitted with 1.55-mm howitzers; another with an MLRS (multiple-launch rocket system); and one with 1.55-mm self-propelled howitzers.

He would also fill an assignment at STARC (state area command) at SDANG Headquarters in Camp Rapid, Rapid City. Following that he would serve as the artillery brigade commander in 2001.

All these assignments kept Hawley training for potential wars in Korea or Europe.

Working with ROK units

“It was kind of interesting, the Cold War training,” Hawley recalled. “We trained with I Corps staff, 9th Infantry Division, at Fort Lewis, Washington. We would have actually trained for Korea.

“I went over to Korea at different times for exercises. In 1989, we loaded up all of our equipment just as if we were being mobilized and shipped it down to a Texas port and shipped all of our equipment to Pusan, Korea. 

“We flew into Pusan, got all our equipment loaded up on rail and went up to Camp Humphries, which is just south of the border. We did an exercise. We fell in under the command of the ROK (Republic of Korea) units that at the phase of the war where they thought we would probably be.”  

“I was a major and an assistant S-3,” he explained. The S-3 officer is responsible for training and operations and the writing of orders for field training operations. In this instance, his assignment was for a three weeks long operation, the unit’s annual training duty. Hawley had been to Korea two times prior to that on individual assignments. He had served on other occasions as an individual participated in annual REFORGER (Return of Forces to Germany) exercises. They were the largest exercises undertaken by American and NATO forces. The last one was conducted in 1993.

Citizen, soldier, lawmaker

“Totally.” That one word summed up the major changes that Hawley saw during his 30 years in the Guard. 

He referenced Gen. William Westmoreland’s noting, after Vietnam, that the United States would “never again go to war without the Guard and Reserve; because with the Guard and Reserve go the heart of America.” 

For both operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, the South Dakota Army National Guard deployed in units.

And when it came to equipping Guard units, they no longer received the Army’s hand-me-down equipment or inadequate funding.

“When we got our MLRS, we worked hard to get our funding through (U.S. Sen. Tom) Daschle (D-SD), add-on funding to buy the rockets,” Hawley explained. “That was the same thing active-duty units had at that time. It was start-of-the-art.”

While better funding, better equipment, and better training have put the Guard on a par with the regulars, it has one additional element that Hawley takes pride in: “the example of our forefathers; they served and then went back to their farms.”

For his part, Hawley comes from a family that served: His father served in the Air Force; an uncle was in the Army and a POW during the Korean War; and his son Ryan joined the National Guard.

For his part, Hawley has taken the concept of service one step further: He served in the South Dakota House of Representatives, as a Democrat, for eight years (2010 to 2018), the last four years as House minority leader. He was term-limited to four two-year terms.

Hawley’s service as a lawmaker and as a guardsman have kept him away from home on a regular basis. As a representative, he spent time in Pierre each spring. As a soldier, he never drilled in or belonged to a Guard unit home-based in Brookings; he always had to travel to his assigned unit in Webster or Sisseton. He estimates that he spent seven years away from Brookings.

Meanwhile, he was in business for 43 years, as an account executive for American Trust Insurance. He credited “a great staff in the office” for helping him while he was away on Guard duty.

Finally, looking back, Hawley sees the Guard as a “true family” and he misses the “quality of people that are around you all the time. We’re all of one mind; we’re there to serve.”

Spence and Barb Hawley have four grown children and six grandchildren.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.