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Friday, November 9, 2007
Six in Reserve, Guard steadfast in their service
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On a quiet fall Sunday afternoon, returning home from a three-day festival in Tennessee, my wife suggested that we drive through the scenic 450-acre grounds of the Mountain Home Veterans Administration Medical Center.
It is a lovely, well-maintained, inviting campus with a teaching and research hospital available to 170,000 veterans in 41 counties in Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky. In early afternoon, before the church crowd had begun to move about, the campus was still.
Just inside the gate, we turned into the 99-acre National Cemetery, a burial ground originally intended for the Union dead in the Civil War. In the stillness of the day, we walk the rows and read the markers. The burials were occurring, one beside the other, as they died.
There was no distinction made to rank or to station in life. Recipients of the Medal of Honor are buried with the simple markers reserved for those who answered the nation’s call.
Heroes and those who weren’t, the ordinary men and women who were most likely strangers in civilian life, united by the shared ideal of national service. The simple white marble markers, arrayed for eternity as soldiers stand in life, are elegant reminders that all who have served have been a part of something that matters more than the individual does.
On a Sunday afternoon in November, I stood before the ranks of the those who are still a part of something that matters more, the soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserves. For three decades now, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has honored the most outstanding citizen-soldiers in the enlisted and noncommissioned officer ranks of the Guard and Reserves.
Every American given to doubt about whether the country still attracts volunteers of the caliber of the Greatest Generation should have the opportunity to visit with professional citizen-soldiers such as the six chosen by the Guard and Reserve for the AJC’s Army Reserve Components Achievement Awards. They are exemplary evidence that America is a blessed nation.
As President Bush said earlier this month in remarks to the Heritage Foundation:
“I believe 50 years from now an American President will be speaking … and say: ‘Thank God that generation that wrote the first chapter in the 21st century understood the power of freedom to bring the peace we want.” This is that generation.
• It is Pfc. Brandon Conway of Suwanee, a landscaper in civilian life, who joined a combat unit, Winder’s Co. C, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry. “An unusually high number of our new members are opting to serve in combat arms units,” said Lt. Gen. David B. Poythress, the state’s retiring adjutant general, noting that at Georgia Army Guard units are at 110 percent of authorized strength.
• It is Pfc. Raymond C. Valez of Lilburn, a member of the Army Reserve’s 427th Medical Battalion at Ft. Gillem.
• Staff Sgt. Christopher Aldred of North Augusta, S.C., an Iraqi veteran and assistant operations sergeant in Augusta’s 878th Engineer Battalion of the Georgia Guard.
• Sgt. Francis S. Laudano of Clarksville, Tenn., another Iraqi veteran in the Reserve’s 310th Psychological Operations Co. at Forest Park, Ga. He is a customer service representative while pursuing a college degree.
• Sgt. 1st Class Andrew B. Gideon, an Army Guardsman and Iraqi veteran who was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. Gideon, a Georgia State Patrol officer, resides in Lafayette. He deployed to Iraq with Calhoun’s 1st Squadron, 108th Reconnaissance Surveillance Target Acquisition unit.
• Sgt. 1st Class Laurie A. Jones of Lithonia, who originally joined the Army in 1983, is the NCO in charge of the Army Reserve Casualty Program for the reserves at Ft. McPherson. She juggles a military career with being a single mother of two sons.
Through all of this nation’s polarizing debate on the war, they have remained focused, acknowledging as citizens the divisions that exist in their country, while as soldiers remaining undeterred and distracted from the necessary preparation for the duty that calls.
Their professionalism does them — and our country — proud.
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