Hometown heroes: Sgt. Maj. Thayn Rex Randall

By Alice Wadley staff writer

The Castle Dale Library hosted Army Sgt. Maj. Thayn Rex Randall as part of their summer storytime. Sgt. Maj. Randall grew up in Elmo. He attended Cleveland Elementary, Canyon View Junior High and graduated from Emery High. He recognized the veterans in attendance.
Sgt. Maj. Randall said, “I am going on 28 years. I joined the Army when I was a Junior in high school, between my junior and senior year. I remember my friends and I reminiscing about what our senior year was going to be like. They were all talking about going to college and getting a scholarship. I was sitting on this rock in Buckhorn Draw thinking, all I know is I don’t want to work in a coal mine. I joined the Army National Guard. I was going to join active duty but my dad gave me the idea, What if you join for four years and you don’t like it? If you join the National Guard you can always go active duty later. I went to basic training and joined the National Guard out of Price. I went to basic training and got to blow stuff up. It was really cool. Things I never got to use again in my entire life.
I filled a lot of sand bags when I was with the engineers. We were doing a large artillery exercise. After filling about my 100th or so sand bag. I thought there has got to be something better than this. I was sitting out there and this helicopter lands and my section sergeant said get on that helicopter and goes to recon a bridge. When I got on the helicopter I thought I’m hooked this is what I need to do. I talked to my platoon sergeant and I said dad I want to transfer to aviation. He made some phone calls for me about transferring to aviation.
“I drove to West Jordan and they said sure we would love to have you in aviation. We are going to make you a CommO (communications operator) guy. I went to school for 16 weeks Ft. Gordon, Georgia and learned how to be a teletype operator, signal channel radio operator and a RATT Rig operator. I learned how to type for the first time in my life. I get out of training and I come back and ask when do I get to be in aviation and when do I get to fly. They said you don’t get to fly you’re a CommO operator.
“I got to go to Ft. Hood for cadre training and my First Sergeant left me at Ft. Hood. He was supposed to pick me up and take me to the airport with him. After a while I thought he’s not coming to get me, so I start walking toward the airport which is about 10 miles away. My First Sergeant remembered me when I was about half way to the airport (three hours later) with my duffle bag and he said I feel really bad how can I make this up to you. I said, I want to fly in helicopters. The next week I went to Fort. Eustis, Virginia and learned Blackhawk maintenance. Out of one bad thing came one great thing and I have done it ever since. It’s called 15 Tango. I have done it for the last 26 years and I have loved every minute of it.
“I have had the opportunity to go and help in floods, help fighting fires and the opportunity to go to the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif. For those of you who don’t know where it is at it is in the middle of the Mojave Desert. I’m thinking to myself there can’t be any place worse than this. I get to go to Kuwait for eight months. I’m thinking to myself what are we doing in Kuwait after the Gulf War. They told us not to go downtown because it was dangerous. During that time the terrorists blew up the USS Cole in Yemen, which was the start of something to follow throughout the rest of history. We didn’t know at the time, we were a couple hundred miles from Yemen. The next think I knew they blew up the gates right by our barracks. That’s when I got the opportunity to see how bad people can be.
“I came home and the Apache unit here in Utah deployed and 911 happened. In my brother’s unit, the 1457th left in 2004 and then soon everyone else followed. Everyone else left and I started thinking to myself when do I get to go. They send me to Iraq. After six months at Fort Hood, Texas I became the First Sergeant for Alpha Company Rum Runners,” said Sgt. Maj. Randall.
He showed a video of Iraq. The Rum Runners were assigned to assist operational forces in Iraq. We were called the Rum Runners because the group had a pirate thing going on. In Muslim countries you can’t drink so the brigade commander wouldn’t let us wear our patch. We all ripped them off in disgust. In the video you will see our other patch or a large piece of velcro where the patch should be.
“You notice in the video there is a lot of desert and a lot of water. They are more about their oil. We had the opportunity to fly around the country with the US agriculture who came over to do a survey of the area and they told us there is enough underground water in the area they could make more money growing vegetables and agriculture to feed that area of the world long after the oil runs out. They are so hard core on oil. It runs everything in the area,” said Sgt. Major Randall. Sgt. Maj. Randall shared some candy with the children. When I was in Central America I got to go to Nicaragua to do some humanitarian aid and these little kids were sitting out in the villages. I got the idea to throw parachutes out of the helicopter with candy for these kids. I got the idea to throw candy out of the helicopter from the Candy Bomber, Gail Halvorsen. They would get so excited they would run down when I would throw the bags of candy out. Pretty soon I had bags of candy showing up and parachute making material.
I came back from Iraq in 2008 and stayed the First Sergeant for Alpha Company a little bit longer. Just a little history on Iraq. The whole country is old testament stuff. The Tower of Babel is there. The place where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. All of the big canals in the video, Saddam Hussein dug those in the earth to detour invading armies during the first gulf war. They dug the canals as tank barriers and to keep the armies out. What he didn’t realize was the other countries would just march around them and come back into the country. He spent all of that time and effort for nothing.
I went to Nicaragua for a while. We sent aircraft to help with Hurricane Katrina. I was ready to put in my retirement papers about five years ago and they said we would like you to go to Afghanistan. Is that all you want me to do? They said you will get to go to the Sergeant Major academy while your over there. If you fail out of it you’re fired. I went to the Sergeant. Major academy which got me prompted to E-9, which is the highest rank you can become in Army as enlisted. We thought in basic training being a Sergeant Major is the like heaven. They are the guys going around saying make sure you wear your helmet, make sure you have your safety belt on, make sure your uniform is bloused and make sure your patches are on right. They are your baby sitter.
I got to go to Afghanistan, where I served with Trevor Cowley of Huntington and we did an awesome job over there. We did a lot of good stuff. Afghanistan looks like the Salt Lake valley; big mountains on one side and flat desert on the other side with modern cities and outlying areas. He shared a video of Afghanistan. I came back in 2012 and was promoted to Sergeant Major and moved up to the 9788th command. I got moved out of my favorite thing to do, which is fly because the position no longer required flying. But because the adjucant general said we need people to go and fight fires and I am one of the few who are qualified to drop water I got to keep flying. We fought fires last summer and I expect to do it this summer.
Sgt. Maj. Randall showed his gear and had a volunteer to try on his battle gear. He showed and told about his uniforms. He invited the public to come and look at his uniforms, military gear, medals, awards and decorations.
After Sgt. Maj. Randall spoke all of the children were given a balloon to write their heroes name on. Carolyn and Larry Randall assisted the children who were taken to the veteran’s memorial to release their balloon. A story was read to the children about military heroes. After the story Larry Randall played Taps and the children released their balloons.