This section I will devote to two separate portions: the first will be my professional development and career advancement, while the second will hail the friendships and help that I have received through my post-West Point-until-now life.
First, I took close to two months of leave directly following my commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army, which occurred on June 1, 1996. During that time I found an opportunity to take my second pilgrimage to Fort Benning, to attend the Army Airborne School. I thought it was pretty dumb until I actually stepped out of that plane 1250 feet in the air. That was certainly the greatest rush I have ever had in my life. I can't even imagine freefall parachuting. After I earned my jump wings, I went to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for the Engineer Officer Basic Course. After completing that grueling course, I went to Fort Hood, Texas, which is just about smack in the middle of the state. I reported to my first engineer unit, the 588th Engineer Battalion in the 4th Infantry Division, on January 7th, 1997.
The battalion treated me very well and provided me an excellent environment in which to make my mistakes and learn from them. I took my platoon the day I arrived at the battalion, which I still fondly remember as my boys of 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company (written 2/B/588). I stayed in that platoon for 14 months, until we returned from the National Training Center in March, 1998. The NTC is located in the Mojave Desert and if you watch much of the History Channel, you have probably heard about it. It is where brigades in the army go to train for desert warfare. I had a blast that first trip and actually got some kills myself. Of course, they were only pretend kills with laser light...
Prior to going to the NTC that first time, I found an opportunity to make an investment and
bought a house in Killeen, Texas. This is it. I am renting it out right now but I won't post any pictures because you would harass me for being a slumlord! By the way, that is my Probe off to the right
which I allude to in my next page. Nick Nazarko (with me in Bosnia) helped me sell it, so it is gone! Woo Hoo!
Anyway, I guess I did pretty well in leading my platoon at NTC, so my battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Marc Hildenbrand decided to make me an experimental guinea pig. He needed two motivated lieutenants to be platoon leaders in the first ever Engineer Bradley Fighting Vehicle equipped company. Since he couldn't find any, he picked me and another guy a lot like me. Nothing like it had ever been done before, but the Engineer Corps realizes the need to modernize our vehicle fleet, so we heeded the call. It was definitely wild and I am pretty sure that we helped convince the engineer leaders to outfit the corps with the Bradley. We just never figured out how to pay for them, because the Bradley is more expensive than the older M113.
Well pretty much right after coming back from NTC in mid March 1998, I went right back to
the field and became the platoon leader of 2/A/588. Luckily all the officers were good friends of
mine, so it went very smoothly. Learning about the Bradley was fun, and getting high gunnery scores
certainly helped the fun meter.
Most members of West Point Class of 1996 got promoted to First Lieutenant on April 16, 1998. A large pay raise joined the increased respect from peers and subordinates. Most of them already knew us very well and allocated the respect that we had earned regardless of rank. Luckily Ben and I could carpool since we both served in A/588, because my cars both had issues. Overall I rate my experience as the Bradley platoon leader very positively, even though my soldiers broke my Gerber and wouldn't own up to it. Racka Fracka, it was a wedding gift from Chris.
Directly after returning from the NTC for the capstone EBFV company test in August 1998, my battalion tested my endurance by then immediately shifting me to Company Executive Officer of Charlie Company, 588th Engineer Battalion (C/588). Basically I served as second in command. This job proved to be a lot of work, since my natural tendency is to fix whatever I see as requiring fixation. Yes you heard me correctly, I spent plenty of personal time at work during the weekends and at night. Luckily I didn't have a family, or else they would have beat me up. We learned just before Christmas time in 1998 that we would go to the NTC in April 1999, so we again prepared to fight and win our nation's wars against the Krasnovian Hordes in Mojavia.
This is a picture of a MICLIC shot at the NTC. That is the only place in the US where you can fire
off a live one, because nearly one ton of C-4 does plenty of damage to windows in populated areas. I have
pictures that are a lot closer than this, but they are blurry.
After returning to Fort Hood after my third NTC rotation in 14 months, I transitioned out of the unit. The battalion commander sent me to Engineer Brigade Headquarters for a staff stint prior to my shipment to the land of landmines and snow, Bosnia-Herzegovina. My primary job at HQ was to inactivate it, which proved to be quite a job. That seems to happen when generals get involved.
Bosnia is covered in decent detail in my thoughts page. I can honestly say as a result of my trip to Bosnia that major aspects of my life changed. I really don't want to go into some of the vast implications in this forum, but I would be willing to talk to anyone personally. I went to Fort Benning again to transition to Bosnia in November 1999. We flew into Frankfurt, then into Taszar, Hungary. We bussed into Tuzla, Bosnia on Thanksgiving 1999. I spent much of my time in Bosnia at a base camp (Camp Demi) that the Americans closed down. In fact, my job included making sure that the civilian contractors recycled as much material as possible in the removal and cleanup of the base camp. It looked complicated but in reality it was too little to keep me occupied. One happy note is that I spent the Millennium in my room alone playing Age of Empires on the computer. Pretty cool huh? Well that is what happens when you are the only officer within 50 miles and there aren't any facilities or people who speak english and celebrate our holidays in the vicinity. It wouldn't have been too bad if we had been allowed off post, but some GI's can't seem to handle that responsibility. I'll tell you about the international incident if you really want to hear about it, but it sure seems like small potatoes after serving in Iraq. I did return to the US early enough to take some leave and visit with many friends and my family in March, which also proved very rewarding spiritually and professionally. It was my first real break since December 1998.
Right before leaving for the Engineer Officer's Advanced Course, which takes me back to Fort Leonard
Wood, Missouri, I got frocked to Captain with Ben. Dan attended just like two years before. We actually
got our promotion orders on May 1st, 2000. I am a captain now, can you believe it? It only took me nine
years out of high school!
No one can say that they made captain without a lot of help. I look back upon my more inexperienced days as a lieutenant and wonder how I ever made it- then I remember the caring leadership of my peers, subordinates, and superiors alike. I have learned so much from those, especially the ones who practiced 360 degree leadership and loyalty. You know who you are if you impacted my life in a positive manner. I cannot thank you enough for showing this poor slob what it is like to be a leader and role model. Thanks to Frank, Ed, Rob H, Rob G, Kelly, Ben, Chris J, Richard, Bob, Chris D, Brian L, Antoine, Chris T, Tim, Brian R, Roger, Andy, Jason, Matt D, Dawn, Adriel, Dan, and all my NCOs and soldiers that I have known at Fort Hood.
Now that you have seen several distinct sets of my personal friends, I will show you the third and most recent. While my set of friends from high school taught me many major lessons in life and still fill me with abundant raw emotion, and my West Point era friends honed my intellect and still challenge me today with wit and wisdom, my Officer friends are both laid back and yet so explicitly caring that I cannot fail to spend as much time doting over them as I did the others.
Much of my time in Killeen I lived with a great friend of mine, Dan Velte. You have already seen some pictures of him earlier on this page. I could not have asked for a better roommate, period. I don't know what else to say except that he is the man. His parents definitely did something right with him, because his temper is even, his humor is solid, and his caring is unmatched. This is the two of us below, during the last couple of months before I left for Missouri. I had a chance to grow a very itchy goatee during my leave period.
I just hope that Dan had as good of a time
living with me as I did living with him. I can't ask any more than that I suppose. The next few pictures
deal mostly with some of my closer friends at Fort Hood. These were people that I met during my first trip
to Missouri, for the Basic Course. In these pictures, we see Ben Wallen, whom I lived with at the advanced course, and Melissa
Tan, a wonderful friend of ours who just got called back into the active army from Individual Ready Reserve (ouch), and of course Dan Velte. Don't forget to
pronounce the hard "e" on the end of his name! That is Cara, Ben and Dan in the back, and Rachel, Paul,
myself and Melissa in the front.
This is the now-famous canoe trip on the Guadalupe. Let's just say that even though the Suburban was a
1950s vintage vehicle and it broke down, we sure had fun. Hey Mel, those girls sure didn't look like high
schoolers, and no matter what, I am very glad you can swim. We found both my shoes and a Doctor Pepper.
What a weekend!
Oh yeah, here is a great picture of Chris, myself, and Dave at Chris' wedding. Doctor Warner is living in DC soon. I'd like to visit him as soon as possible. He and family almost convinced me to move to DC someday... soon (but I think Dallas won).
Here is a quick snapshot of my friends from church. I went because the guy second from left (Larry)
invited me for Easter Sunday 1999. It was a lot more outgoing than I had ever seen a church before, which
may surprise them when they see this. It was never boring, and I loved that. I don't appreciate
denominational barriers, so I won't mention the type of church, but I enjoyed it and will go back whenever
I find myself in Central Texas. From left to right, you see (all in blue!) Brent, Larry, Patrick and
Danielle. I am not sure why Danielle looks like she is about to fall over, but she didn't.
Bowling take me away from this horrible web site!
Back to my main page. On to my Captain page.