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. By the way, that is my Probe off to the right
which I allude to in my next page. Nick 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 I couldn't dig them up.
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... 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 live with now, and Melissa
Tan, a wonderful friend of ours who is now living in Pennsylvania, 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 moving back to DC soon.
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.
Here is a picture I got with Tami and Alissa the day I left for Missouri. I felt compelled to get it
because the last picture I got with Tami was that one in my barracks room at West Point when she was trying
to get Dave to rehydrate. Tami and I have known each other for a while now, and I miss her. We were neighbors
at WP and then she was a significant reason that I went to Fort Hood as opposed to Germany for my first
assignment. While she and I may not exactly see eye to eye on everything, I still can't complain about the
time I had when we actually did link up and hang out. Thanks, Spicer. I still want to go on that cruise-
when is the next one? This is a very rare and special photo, because it is one of only two in existence
that I have of Alissa. About my other friend in this picture- never in my life have I spent so little
dedicated time with someone and come away with such a high impression. Tami re-introduced Alissa and I very
shortly before I came to MO. We actually served together when she was the Support Platoon Leader in my
sister battalion and we went to NTC in August 1998. That gave me great respect for her, which grew after I
heard some of the stories of her experience. It made me think about the prejudices and discrimination that
some people have to face but which I take for granted because I don't have to face it.
Alissa volunteered to hang out with me even though she was busy with a close friend's wedding, and I feel honored at her genuineness and all-around kindness toward me as an individual. The lesson learned here I suppose is that people can usually tell when you are sincere when you talk and act to your friends in the same way. Alissa, you have restored my faith in the gentility and magnanimity of the fair sex in a very decisive and convincing way. I look forward to seeing you again.
Alas Ben and I finally settled in our new apartment about 10 minutes from school. This first picture is of the Chevelle- 'Belle after we pushed it off the transport. I am looking toward selling it to consolidate my assets, but I have seen two 1968 Chevelles in this little town already. The next photo is a quick picture of my room before Chris and Jacob moved out.
This picture is of me actually putting this page together. It took a bit longer than I planned, so
next time I will probably use a more friendly page maker. I did all of it myself this time. I did want to
start out writing the code myself since it gives me an appreciation of how the entire Hyper Text Markup Language
works.
This picture is
of my team here in Missouri at the advanced course. We have all gotten pretty close and I like them all. If you take my
word for it, our junior leaders in the army and marines really care about the security of the United States and their
soldiers. The fact that many of us aren't satisfied with their role in the military should tell us all about the systemic
problems that are occurring today in our armed forces. Many times senior leadership writes us off as "whiners" and soft
but if everyone is singing the same song, my thought is that we need to reevaluate our organizational processes. You see
here from left to right, Major Hanna (Egypt), Ted Radtke, Steve Tabat, Jim Handura, Curran Johnson, Major Al-Ghamdi (Saudi
Arabia), Rick Hansen (the group instructor), Shirle Fleming, me, Staci Gash, Eren Sitki, Erik Hendrickson, Rob Sayre (my
roommate by proxy at Fort Leavenworth these past few weeks), USMC Capt. Hall Bain, and Captain Federico (Fred) Luchini
(Argentina).
During the advanced course, I did get an opportunity to travel a bit. Besides attending Jason and Jenny's wedding in Arizona, I visited with some of my Fort Hood buds down in the big easy. Good pick on the weekend again... This picture is of my friends from Texas (Dom, me, Nancy, Dan in the bottom row and Greg in the upper right corner) during a visit to New Orleans on Labor Day Weekend.
It was
kind of weird because it was Gay Pride Parade weekend too, which certainly caused some unpleasant moments for me. Notice
also the band aid on my forehead. I got nine stitches playing soccer the week prior and I had an X-Men band aid to cover
the sutures. It was a great conversation starter, but I found that it was difficult for anyone to take me seriously with
that thing on my forehead. Oh well. At the very least, Dan doesn't seem to be having any trouble seeing out of his left
eye in this picture. You will have to ask Nancy about that because she holds the incriminating evidence.
This is all for now.
As you may have already heard, I will be going to Kuwait once my master's degree is completed, approximately April 2001. I will be north of Kuwait City at an American base camp called Camp Doha. Of course, I am supposed to get there at about the same time that the 10 year mutual defense agreement between the United States and Kuwait expires, but I honestly don't expect the Kuwaitis to tell the Americans to pack their bags quite so quickly after the expiration. I look forward to several things about going to the middle east- one is the travel to Israel, which I really wanted to do before too much longer. Well this is my perfect opportunity. I also plan on visiting the pyramids in Egypt and a few other spots that I will prioritize once I get there. I already have local tour guides set up in three separate countries based on people that I have met while here in Missouri, so it all should work out nicely. I plan on posting pictures of the stuff that I see when over there, so you can all get a nice appreciation as it happens. Things that I don't look forward to- Anthrax shots, Iraq being within artillery range, waterborne syphillis. Well we'll see about that last one...
Oh yeah, this "Officer" thing has been pretty darn cool so far. Let's see what it holds for my future. The next real step is finishing my master's program. Next I head off to the land of Islam and excitement, Kuwait. At first I didn't want to go there since it will take me out of the United States for another year (approximately April 2001 to April 2002). However, when I started thinking about the opportunitites to travel abroad, like visiting Israel, Jordan, the ancient pyramids in Egypt, and maybe even a trip to Athens, Greece, I got much more excited. I should save quite a lot of money and be absolutely liability free when I return to the states, if not sooner. After I return from the middle east, it looks like I will go to Colorado for my next assignment, but that isn't written in stone until I get my follow-on orders. I will keep everyone posted about the details of my long strange adventure as it unfolds.
Bowling take me away from this horrible web site!
Back to my main page. On to my transportation assets.