"I believe that if you're enthused about what you're doing," Tucker said, "the people under you and around you will be inspired to do it better. "Emmett is one of a kind," said longtime friend Harold Grant. He continues to serve his country as a member of the American Legion and a member of the Campbell Patriot Honor Guard. He also served 25 years as a constable, and helps the police auxiliary as a volunteer. In retirement, he devotes time to his Harley-Davidson, gospel music and television news programs. He apologizes that only the first mile is a full run he jogs the last two miles.Ī graduate of Westside High before his active military stint and a student at Anderson University later in life, Tucker retired from the military in 1995. Tucker's stay-in-shape routine covers three miles each day. "I made up my mind during that run that I was going to get myself in good shape. "I was sucking wind." recalls Tucker, 68 now and 31 at the time. He was serving as a drill sergeant in 1977, five years after the Vietnam War, when a Bravo Company commander turned to Tucker and told him to take the new recruits out for a mile run.Ī hundred yards into the order, Tucker realized he hadn't been doing a lot of running of late. The training routine eventually molded his personal discipline. More than 20 years after the Vietnam War, Tucker continued to be involved in training by serving in the Army Reserves as an instructor to drill sergeants, "I trained them for war, even at times of peace." "After Vietnam, I still pushed them just as hard. I think I had their respect," Tucker said.Įven after that war ended, the fear of future wars made it difficult for Tucker to change gears. A lot of them realized that I was interested foremost in their welfare. Tucker, who served as a drill sergeant at Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, Fort Gordon and Fort Jackson, says he was equally unkind to all his recruits. And I was confident that many would not come back," Tucker said. "I was always aware that most were going to southeast Asia. "I wasn't there to be their friend ? I was there to teach them how to survive." "Compared to me, Sergeant Carter was a wuss," Tucker said, referring to the well-known fictional Marine Corps drill sergeant of Gomer Pyle TV show fame in the 1960s. Casualty rates in Vietnam demanded that approach. His job was to make lives longer in Vietnam by making them miserable at basic training. With a relatively short training period and much information to convey, Tucker had little time, or inclination, to forge friendships. "I wasn't there to hold hands with ?em," Tucker says. None of the awards came because he was soft on his pupils. "I felt like I was one heck of a drill sergeant," said Tucker, who has three Outstanding Drill Sargeant awards, and thousands of hours of drill experience, to support the claim. A tour of duty in Vietnam had the potential to be mentally and physically exhausting, and Tucker wanted his platoons to be prepared their lives might depend on it. In the 1960s, when his fuzzy-cheeked students were typically on their way to combat assignments in southeast Asia, Tucker felt that anything less imposing might not properly prepare the recruit. His daily routine was more direct and confrontational: nose-to-nose, with voice raised and threatening eyes glaring. Army, but most of those hours had little social benefit. And even if boot-camp groups staged frequent reunions, he figures he'd never get invited. doesn't get many birthday cards from old Army buddies. Authorities at Fort Jackson said the behavior seen in the video “is by no means condoned by any service member” and that they have begun an investigation and are “working with the local authorities.Emmett Tucker Jr. Pentland has been stationed at Fort Jackson for the past two years and has worked as a drill sergeant. Records for the Richland County jail later listed Pentland as being detained on a charge of third-degree assault, the AP reports. Police arrived at the scene, but initially only gave Pentland a citation for malicious injury to property after he slapped the man’s phone out his hand, causing it to shatter. You better start walking right now.” The moments leading up to the incident were not captured on video, but Pentland’s wife can be heard at the end of the video accusing the man of picking a fight with “some random young lady,” which the man denied. Army in connection with the incident at the gated community where he. “You’re in the wrong neighborhood mother fucker,” the soldier, identified as Jonathan Pentland, can be seen telling the man in the video. Jonathan Pentland, 42, who is based at Fort Jackson in Columbia, S.C., is also under investigation by the U.S. Army staff sergeant who was caught on video harassing a Black man in a South Carolina residential area has been charged with third-degree assault, the Associated Press reports.
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