Desert Rat Testament

Host Mark Schauer talks with Darin Meeks, who after retiring as an Army 1st Sgt. worked as a geodetics technician at Yuma Proving Ground from 2005 until his retirement in 2025. Raised in Yuma County and widely known in...

Host Mark Schauer talks with New York native Ron Basolet. After a 26-year active-duty career in the United States Marine Corps, Basolet brought his decades of experience in logistics to U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground's...

Host Mark Schauer talks with Sgt. Maj. (ret.) Ronald Rodriguez, the son of a career Army veteran who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. After a career as a Military Policeman, Rodriguez served for more than 20...

Host Mark Schauer talks with Wayne Schilders, who grew up in Arkansas and enlisted in the National Guard during his junior year in high school. Joining the regular Army after graduation, Schilders trained in field...

Host Mark Schauer talks with Maria Johnson, a Navy veteran who was lead combat vehicle data collector at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground from 1987 until medically retiring in 2013. She is today a resident of the Arizona...

Host Mark Schauer talks with Col. (ret.) Randy Murray, who was commander of U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground from 2014 to 2017. An aviator, prior to his command he had served in the Army for 24 years in positions that...

Host Mark Schauer talks with Col. (ret) Stephen Kreider, who was commander of U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground from 2003 to 2006. After a 28-year Army career, he served as Director of the Future Combat System Combined Test...

Host Mark Schauer talks with Col. (ret) John Bullington, who was commander of U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground from 2006 to 2009. After a 32-year Army career, he served as Assistant Director of the Arizona Game and Fish...

Host Mark Schauer talks by phone with Col. (ret) Reed Young, who served as commander of U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground from 2011 to 2014, which included the busiest test workload year in the post's history. Today, Young...

Host Mark Schauer talks with Teri Womack, who from 1986 to 2019 worked in a variety of positions at Yuma Proving Ground, from an administrative assistant at the Systems Test Branch to her final post as a marketing...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...