RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Soldiers with ties to Jackson featured in coverage of war
A recent article featured Company B of the 131st Aviation Regiment, an Alabama Army National Guard unit stationed at Iraq's Anaconda Airbase. The company is an airassault company for Blackhawk helicopters. The article focused on the military personnel of the company and three of them have Jackson ties. The following profiles are directly from Marshall's account: The older guard One of the full-time maintenance technicians that [Capt. Brad] Howard reverently referred to is 54-year-old Sgt. Murray Garris of Jackson, Ala. But Garris didn't come over here to work on Blackhawks. Instead, he is serving as a fulltime Blackhawk crew chief and gunner. It is a grueling job, especially in the current 120-degree heat. The crew chief must crawl out of the Blackhawk window, open the doors, guide passengers on or off the helicopter, then button up the aircraft and crawl back through the window to man the machine gun. "I love it," he said, grinning broadly. "This gives me a chance to fly and to keep these kids from having to travel on the ground with all those IEDs (improvised explosive devices)." He said age is not really a factor. "I just work a little harder to keep up with the younger ones, but I do keep up." Father and son At 58, Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Schultz is one of Company B's pilots. His oldest son John, 31, is one of Company B's crew chiefs. They want to go out on missions together, but they have never been in the same helicopter. Army regulations forbid family members from flying together in combat. The older Schultz has seen more than his share of combat. He earned a Silver Star 36 years ago in Vietnam. As a Cobra helicopter pilot, he was protecting ground troops from an assault when his ammunition ran out. He continued to make passes at the enemy, firing a .38-caliber revolver out the window. Son John wants to follow in Dad's footsteps. John hopes to go to flight school when he gets back home. Both said there is a big benefit to serving in a combat zone together. "We get to spend more time with each other than we ever had in the past," Thomas said. "Also, I get to pass along wisdom to him about how to take care of himself." The downside: "If I were at war, and Dad was back home, he wouldn't know when I was out on missions," John said. They both know exactly when to worry because each knows when the other is in the air. Thomas Schultz has been in the Alabama National Guard for 31 years after serving three years in the regular Army. He is the full-time safety officer at the Guard aviation facility in Mobile and fills that role over here as well. He lives in Jackson with his wife, Dana, and their three children, Samantha, 15; Sydney, 14; and Seth, 9.
John, a lineman for Comcast Cable, lives in Mobile with his wife, Chaney, and their 10- month-old daughter, Caroline.
|
for larger version       |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
)
