“We graduated on Friday and started Jump School on a Monday,” he said.

Teske served his enlistment, from 1984 to 1987, with the famous 82nd Airborne Division.

“I was in Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Regiment,” he said. “The 82nd’s claim to fame is that it’s the largest parachute division in the free world.”

He’s also proud of what the unit’s famous AA patch signifies.

-Submitted photo
One of the many times Fort Dodge Fire Department Capt. Steve Teske jumped while serving in the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne was captured by one of his fellow soldiers.

“It’s the All American division,” he said. “In World War II they realized there were people from every state in the union representing all walks of life. They all came together for a common purpose.”

Teske enlisted in the fall after his graduation from Fort Dodge Senior High.

Serving had been his goal for several years before, though.

“I knew when I was a junior in high school,” he said. “That was my goal, I wanted to do a service.”

At the time, there were several enlistment length options. Teske decided on three years.

-Submitted photo by Hans Madsen
Fort Dodge Fire Department Capt. Steve Teske captured this image of his fellow 82nd Airborne soldiers during a jump with a small pocket camera.

“I thought if it works and I like it I can always re-enlist,” he said.

Teske’s reaction to his first jump reflects the lessons, values and experience he had in the unit.

“You gain a confidence that you know what you’re doing,” he said. “You have an underlying fear, but a mental commitment. You’re going to do it anyway. I had no thoughts of quitting, that was never an option.”

Jump School was just the beginning.

“Then you begin the real training, with guys that have been doing it longer than you’ve been alive,” he said.

He said the mental aspect of the training was what got him and others through the often grueling physical part of it.

“A lot of those old timers,” he said, “they had developed and embraced that mental toughness. They’re humping those packs, they’re keeping it going. How do they do that? It’s 100 percent mental toughness.”

Teske does not consider what he did heroic. He’s proud of his service, but believes those who served in combat are the real heroes.

“I’m no kind of hero,” he said. “The real heroes are those that signed up knowing they were going to be deployed or those that honored the draft card they got in the mail. They know, they went anyway. Peacetime was a different ballgame. It was hard, but it was not dropping into a combat zone. I don’t thing anybody can give them too much credit.”

The actual experience of being in a jump, or getting to watch one, has stayed with Teske.

“You could unload that plane in 15 seconds,” he said. “If you’re on the ground, you would hear nothing, then you’d hear planes and within seconds there’s a thousand guys on top of you in no time.”

He also went to jungle warfare school in Panama and winter survival school. Most of his service time was spent doing what the 82nd Airborne does best.

“We secured small airfields all over the South,” he said.

He said that serving in the military was excellent preparation for life.

“You have a depth of life experience a lot don’t have,” he said. ”You come out with more maturity than you went in with. I’m now prepared to become something with what I have.”

When his enlistment was over in 1987, Teske went to school. He studied carpentry and took general education credits.

Then his course changed.

“My mom saw an ad for the civil service test for the Fire Department,” he said. “I tested. I was on the list with Chief Hergenreter. I ended up getting hired in the fall of 1988.”

While he was eligible, Teske waited 21 years before he took a promotional test, for much the same reason he didn’t seek an officer’s commission in the military.

“I always associated with the enlisted guys,” he said. “Those E7s that could do anything. I wanted to be one of those guys. In the fire service I felt the same way. Those senior guys that had a ton of experience and skills without the title. I wanted to be one of the senior fire fighters.”

He still finds himself looking back on his time in the service and realizing that something he learned then, is with him now.

“You won’t realize the significance until you look back later in life,” he said. “Don’t waste your chance. Put all your effort into it. You can become part of something bigger than yourself.”