BIO:
I was born in Olathe Kansas. I lived there from birth to about 8 and then moved to Topeka, Kansas. 8 years later, I moved back to Olathe. I have two older brothers. One is in the U.S. Air Force. The other works for a Natural Gas Company.
I graduated from Olathe North High School in 1996 and Joined the US Army. I went to basic training at Ft. Leonardwood, Mo and attended Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Ft. Lee, VA. When I received my orders for my permanent duty station, it was accompanied by N.A.T.O orders. I flew to Germany and two weeks later I found myself in Bosnia refueling Apache Helicopters. Being 18 and the first time away from home besides basic and AIT was bad enough, but being in a Hazardous Fire Zone and not knowing any of my fellow soldiers sucked. During the deployment I decided to get a tattoo while on Pass in Budapest Hungary. I can tell you for sure that alcohol and tattoos do not go together well. THey tend to make you bleed a lot. After living in a tent for 8 months I redeployed back to Germany. The rest of the time in Germany was a blast. Since I had learned how to speak German in high school, getting around was easy for me and I did a lot of traveling around the country.
In 1999, I received orders transferring me back to the US and assigning me of all places, Ft. Riley, Kansas. This time I was refueling the M1A1 Abrams Tank. In 2000, I was again deployed to a Hazardous Duty Zone, in Kuwait. I was in the desert when the USS Cole was bombed and spent about a week traveling and conducting operations to the Iraq border and taking soldiers to the Air strip to get flown to Quatar to guard the embassy.
In 2001, I got out of Active Duty and went into the Army Reserve in Kansas City, Kansas driving 5,000 gal fuel trucks (rolling RPG target) . I drove a fuel truck for a while and then was hired as Law Enforcement Officer in 2002. I was activated in 2003 with the Army Reserve and went to Ft. Leonardwood in Preparation to go to Iraq, however our mission was cancelled and I returned to my job until 2004 when I was activated again and sent to St. Louis, MO in preparation to deploy to Iraq. I was deployed with a unit in a position I was never trained. I received about 3 days of training before deploying ( all classroom work). When I arrived in Kuwait to stage for Iraq I was sent as part of the Advanced Party to get me as much OJT as possible. I was stationed at Al Taqquedum Air Base in Iraq. That is near Fallujah and Ramadi. I conducted approximately 35 combat patrols as convoy security and survived two encounters with Improvised explosive devices and mortar attacks. I redeployed in 2005 and returned to work until I ended my military carreer at the rank of Staff Sergeant in 2007. I received the Meritorius Service Medal, 2 Army Commendation Medals, 3 Army Achievement Medals, 3 Armed Forces Expeditionary Medals and a handful of other medals to include the Meritorius Unit Citation as a member of my unit.
But enough about me,
Soldier