Media
(news story script and audio quote)
Retired Fort McCoy commander and Sparta resident Colonel Ray Boland has written a book entitled When the Bugle Calls, A Soldier’s Memoir. Boland served full-time for 30 years, including as an Army pilot in Vietnam, and commanded a German combat brigade near the end of the Cold War. The 86-year-old Boland enlisted in the National Guard in 1954. Boland says how families deal with having a career soldier in their family is seldom shared and discussed but needs to be heard.
Boland says even after writing 94 thousand words, he’s considering writing a second book on his time as the state veterans affairs officer and in politics. He was a teacher at the now closed Roche a Cri Elementary School near Adams before getting into the military full time.