National Guard allowed time to combine service, farming

SAUNEMIN, Ill. — With his eight-year commitment to the Army National Guard, Chuck Hanley was able to juggle his agriculture careers with his service.

Hanley graduated from Saunemin High School in 1962 and joined the Army National Guard two months later.

He completed his six months of basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in the south-central Missouri Ozarks in time to help his father plant the next spring on the family farm northeast of Saunemin in east-central Illinois.

Training is an important component to all branches of service — and the Army National Guard is no exception.

“We always had a two-week summer training camp. We were at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin and Camp Ripley in Minnesota. I was involved with the National Guard in Pontiac and later in Streator,” Hanley said.

“One time shortly after I got out of basic and got back here, we were a tank unit. We had M60 tanks at the Army National Guard Armory in Pontiac. We’d take the tanks out for drill weekends.

“Once a month, we had a weekend drill. We would take the tanks to the Pontiac Prison grounds and drive them. We never shot anything in training there.

“When we were at Camp McCoy or Camp Ripley, we shot the 90mm canons and they had 50mm machine guns in the tanks. It was good training.”

Federalized

During the tumultuous latter part of the 1960s, Hanley’s unit was federalized twice.

“When Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in 1968, we were federalized, called up and we were on the streets of Chicago. I was a mess sergeant and we took coffee out to the troops that were walking the streets. I had a driver, a jeep with coffee in the back, and I carried a loaded M1 rifle with a bayonet on it going through Chicago,” Hanley recalled.

“We were up there a week and there was not a shot fired by an Illinois National Guardsman. We were on Cicero Avenue. There were all kinds of burned buildings, smashed glass. But the people respected the Guard. They knew we meant business. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got shot.

“The next year, we were federalized and called to the University of Illinois where they were rioting. The Guard encompassed the Quad on the U of I campus. We had M1s, but we didn’t have any ammunition at that time. We moved all of the kids into the center and the State Police came in and took care of it.”

Hanley was able to continue his National Guard commitment with his careers on the family farm and at the Campbell Soup Co.

Several farmers in the Saunemin and nearby Emington areas raised tomatoes for Campbell Soup in the 1960s, including the Hanleys.

“I helped dad farm. We grew 40, 50 acres of tomatoes. There was a five-year period where a bunch of farmers around here had tomatoes. I think dad raised tomatoes for five years and maybe two or three were good years and the rest weren’t,” the veteran said.

“Campbell’s was so good to the farmers. I went to Joliet Junior College and graduated in 1967 and began working for Campbell Soup Co. I worked there for about 12.5 years.

“When I started at Campbell’s, we lived in DeKalb and I was an assistant field man. About two years later, one of the field men went on to farming and they needed a field man in Michigan. So, I moved to Michigan. While I was in Michigan, they moved me to the mushroom farm.”

At that point, Hanley had fulfilled his eight-year obligation to the Guard.

“I would have stayed longer, but we moved to Michigan and it was very inconvenient to come back here to do the weekend drills. I had eight years in the National Guard and it was a good experience.” he said.

“From the mushroom farm, they transferred me to the Campbell’s Soup plant in Chicago. We moved to Plainfield. It was there where I worked at the ‘soup house’ in purchasing and then was agriculture department manager. We moved back here to the farm in 1979.”

Family Farm

The Mies-Hanley Centennial Farm has been in the family since 1893.

“My mom’s uncle started farming here. Mom was born in this house in 1911. My uncles, Charles Mies and Clarence Mies, then farmed it. In 1953, my dad started farming and we moved here,” Hanley said.

Conservation has been an ongoing practice at the farm for many years, and Hanley is a longtime member of the Livingston County Soil and Water Conservation District.

“I got on the Livingston County SWCD board in the early 1980s as an associate director. Wendell Lighty from Saunemin was a director and asked me to be on. I’ve been involved since then. I got an award two or three years ago from the Association of Illinois Soil and Water Conservation Districts for 40 years,” he said.

“This farm is a half section, one-half mile north and south and a mile east and west. We harvest the corn and we plant cover crop this fall in the corn ground. We burn down the cereal rye cover crop in the spring and no-till right into it. The soybean ground is strip-tilled. Instead of disking the soybean ground, we want to leave as much cover on top as we can to protect the soil.

“We strip about a 7-inch strip in the fall. We don’t put on any nitrogen in the fall. We apply dry fertilizer in the fall. In the spring, we’ll run a strip freshener over it with some nitrogen and plant right into that and we sidedress the rest of our nitrogen in the spring after the corn is up.

“I’ve no-tilled for 30, 35 years. I remember getting a four-row planter from the Soil and Water Conservation District and no-tilled some corn into soybean stubble. We’ve learned a lot over the years.”

Hanley is a member of the Saunemin American Legion and looks back fondly on his National Guard service.

“It was a good experience. There was a lot of discipline. You had to be there every time they had a drill. Drill was on Saturday and Sunday and you had to be there at 7 a.m. and you did it. That was part of your obligation. We served the country,” he said.