Episodes

  • Desert Rat Testament, Episode 23

    Desert Rat Testament, Episode 23
    Jun 27 2024
    Host Mark Schauer talks with Maj. (ret) James Branch, whose 22 years in the Army included serving at the Military Freefall School at Yuma Proving Ground from 2011 to 2013, first as executive officer, then as commander. Today he is the Senior Army Instructor for Yuma County, Arizona's first Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program.
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Desert Rat Testament, Episode 22

    Desert Rat Testament, Episode 22
    May 29 2024
    Host Ana Henderson talks with Peter Efroymson, who worked at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) as a firefighter and 911 emergency dispatcher from 1993 to 2024. Hear as he recounts his contributions and memories about his time responding to emergencies in and around YPG.
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  • Desert Rat Testament, Episode 21

    Desert Rat Testament, Episode 21
    Apr 30 2024
    In this episode of Desert Rat Testament hear Alan Pumphrey, an officer who served as post adjutant at Yuma Proving Ground in the early 1980s who recently returned to visit for the first time in more than four decades. Hear as he recounts his memories of Cold War-era YPG with host Ana Henderson.
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  • Desert Rat Testament, Episode 20

    Desert Rat Testament, Episode 20
    Mar 28 2024
    Host Mark Schauer talks with Minerva Peters, whose Department of the Army career began in 1985. After 15 years working as an operations research analyst with the Army’s Operational Test and Evaluation Command, she began working at Yuma Proving Ground in 2000. Attracting attention for her work on test programs for the Crusader self-propelled howitzer and Stryker combat vehicle, in 2006 she was made head of a newly established process improvement office. She became YPG’s Chief of Staff in 2015, the position she retired from in March 2024.
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  • Desert Rat Testament, Episode 19

    Desert Rat Testament, Episode 19
    Feb 28 2024
    Host Mark Schauer talks with Mike Kingston, who served as a test photographer at U.S. Army Cold Regions Test Center as a soldier during the Vietnam era and as a civilian from 1989 to 2014. A former wildland firefighter well known as a volunteer firefighter in Delta Junction, Alaska, in his retirement Kingston was recently recognized as the community's volunteer of the year for his work on behalf of the local Meals on Wheels program.
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Desert Rat Testament, Episode 18

    Desert Rat Testament, Episode 18
    Jan 30 2024
    Host Mark Schauer talks with Jonna Pittman, who retired as U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground's Logistics Manager in 2024. Prior to starting her civilian career here in 2007, she served in the Army from 1977 to 2007, retiring as a Sergeant Major.
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  • Desert Rat Testament, Episode 17

    Desert Rat Testament, Episode 17
    Dec 26 2023
    Host Mark Schauer talks with Command Sgt. Maj. (ret.) Forbes Daniels. Born in Guyana, he immigrated to the United States as a teenager and enlisted in the Army in 1981. His tenure as Yuma Proving Ground’s Command Sergeant Major from 2008 to 2012 was bookended by multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He retired from active duty in 2017 and today works in a civilian capacity at the Army’s Fort Eisenhower.
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  • Desert Rat Testament, Episode 16

    Desert Rat Testament, Episode 16
    Nov 30 2023
    Host Mark Schauer talks with Alan Tinseth, a nuclear engineer who worked at Yuma Proving Ground as a test officer and in the Technology and Investments Directorate from 1984 until his retirement in 2022. The son of a wounded veteran of the Korean War's Battle of Chosin Reservoir, in 1989 he was a test officer on a self-propelled howitzer evaluation for a foreign customer that saw a fatal accident.
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    Less than 1 minute