LTC John Gentry, Jr. takes command

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LTC John Gentry Jr. takes command in ceremony September 11

2010-10-07 / Personalities

LTC John Gentry Jr. is pictured with his wife, Katherine, and daughters, Caroline (in front) and Anna, following the ceremony in which he took command of the 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery.Lieutenant Colonel John T. Gentry Jr. took command of the 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery in the Change of Command Ceremony Saturday, September 11, at Old Fort Jackson in Savannah, the oldest standing fort in Georgia.

This date was chosen to remember the attack on American soil on September 11, 2001. The location held significance as the last time the 118th was mustered as a battalion, it was at Old Fort Jackson in October of 1812.

Among the speakers and special guests for the change of command were Brigadier General Maria Britt, Commanding General, Georgia Army National Guard, and Colonel Lee Durham, Deputy Commander of the 48th Brigade. LTC Gentry took over command from LTC Reginald Neal.

LTC Gentry’s military career began when he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Field Artillery on July 10, l991, through the Reserve Officers Training Corps at Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C. His first assignment was as a Company Fire Support Officer in the 1st Battalion, 178th Field Artillery in the South Carolina Army National Guard.

Upon transferring to the Georgia Army National Guard, LTC Gentry served in the 1-214th FA, Joint Forces Headquarters, 122nd Rear Operations Center, 1-118th Field Artillery Regiment and Headquarters, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

His duty assignments include Fire Direction Officer, Platoon Leader, Firing Battery Commander and BN Intelligence Officer in the 1-214th FA; State Education Officer at Joint Forces Headquarters; Fire Support Officer in the 122nd ROC; Operations Officer in the 1-118th FAR and his current position at Brigade Fire Support Officer in HHC, 48th BCT.

LTC Gentry’s deployed assignments include Effects Coordinator for Multi-National Force North West and Multi-National Division- Baghdad’s Task Force Thunderbolt, Iraq; Information Operations Coordinator for Task Force Phoenix IX and Current Operations Officer for the International Security Assistance Forces Afghanistan Development Assistance Bureau, Afghanistan.

LTC Gentry is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, Combined Arms Service Staff School, Fire Support Coordinator Course, Tactical Information Operations Course, Basic Airborne Course, Anti-Terrorism Course, Surveillance Detection Course, Human Resource Management Course and the Paladin Commanders Course. He has a bachelor’s degree from Presbyterian College and has completed course work toward a Masters in Public Administration from the American University in Washington, D.C.

His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal 2nd award, Army Achievement Medal 2nd award, Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal 4th award, National Defense Medal with bronze star, Afghanistan Campaign Medal with campaign star, Iraq Campaign Medal with campaign star, Global War on Terror Service Medal, Army Forces Reserve Medal with M device 3rd award, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon 2nd award, NATO Medal, Basic Parachute Badge and the Honorable Order of Saint Barbara.

LTC Gentry’s civilian employment is with the Oconee County Board of Commissioners where he serves as Director of Parks and Recreation in Watkinsville.

He is married to the former Katherine Pope of Washington. They have two daughters, Anna and Caroline.

Following the ceremony, LTC and Mrs. Gentry were hosts at a barbecue for the Battalion, dignitaries and guests.

Among family and friends attending the event with the Gentry family were extended family, J.C. and Johnnie Ann Gentry Carroll of Eutawville, S.C., Jason Gentry, Maggie and Ella, of Florence, S.C., Susan and Edward Pope Jr., and Edward, Susan and Wesley Pope, of Washington; a number of coworkers from the Oconee County Recreation Department; Oconee County Commissioner Margaret Hale, and family friend, Dana Connor of Holly Hill, S.C.

Guardsmen talk about their work with the Afghan people

HUNTER ARMY AIRFIELD, Savannah, Feb. 26, 2010 – Standing inside the air terminal, waiting to board the bus that will take him and his fellow Soldiers on the last leg of their journey home, Georgia Army Guard Sgt. Donald Hitchcock talked about what he experienced in Afghanistan.

Hitchcock, who lives in Rincon, said he performed his share of “other duties” like any Soldier. The one he’s proudest of, though, is the mission he and fellow combat engineer Staff Sgt. Nick Ives conducted as part of an embedded training team (ETT) teaching route-clearing techniques to more than 400 Afghan Soldiers.

Before they finished, Hitchcock said, his team had “trained-up” six new Afghan combat engineer companies. Those units now have responsibility for keeping military and civilian personnel safe from IEDs planted by insurgents bent on keeping control of that country’s roadways.

“You gotta be proud of something like that,” Hitchcock said. “I mean, you take six Soldiers and give them 400 guys who had no idea of how to go about doing one of the most dangerous jobs there is on a battlefield, and train them to do it right and do it as safe as you possibly can.

“I know I’m proud of that,” he said

“Better believe it,” Ives added. “These guys couldn’t even perform the basic Soldier skills like driving or hitting what they shot at. And now, well now they can not only do that, but they perform one of the most dangerous jobs on the battlefield…detecting and removing an IED.”

Hitchcock and Ives, both with Statesboro’s 48th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, are among the more than 2,000 members of Georgia’s 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team who deployed last June in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Their yearlong mission was to mentor and train members of the Afghan Army and National Police.

When they arrived in Afghanistan in May 2009, Hitchcock and Ives were not in country 24 hours before being assigned to the ETT team. Within the first three months, their team had established an academy to train their charges.

“Route-clearing is a defined art,” Hitchcock explained. “It’s slow going and every inch of ground has to be observed. One has to look for things such as a freshly repaired place in the road or shoulder, broken pavement where it wasn’t broken before and trash left along the highway.”

“You’re suspicious of anything and everything,” Ives said, “and that includes people standing near the road. The Afghans had to be taught how to be observant, how to employ mine sweepers and mine sweeping techniques, how to disarm the device, and how dispose of it.”

As the Afghans gained more knowledge about route-clearing from the Georgia Guardsmen, the mutual respect between the two groups grew, Hitchcock said.

“By living with them, eating with them and working along side them, we came to know them better,” he added. “They’re no different than any other Soldier. They have their complaints and they have their faults just as we all do, but at the end of the day, they’re no different than us – they’re Soldiers doing a job: protecting each other, their families and their country.”

Now that they are home, Hitchcock, Ives and their fellow Guardsmen will spend about a week redeploying at the Georgia Guard Garrison Training Center next to Fort Stewart before returning to their traditional Guard status. In his civilian job, Hitchcock works as a sales associate for Cricket Phone in Pooler.

With their deployment over, Hitchcock said he plans on returning to Georgia Technical College to study economics. Ives, who lives in Statesboro, is doing the same, only he will be going after an accounting degree.

 Story, photo by Sgt. 1st Class Roy Henry
Georgia Department of Defense 
Public Affairs Office

Guardsmen Give Afghans "Radio in a Box"

SHINWAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- In a perfect world, accurate information would be as close as a radio. For a country at war, accurate information is invaluable.

Georgia Army National Guardsmen of 1st Squadron, 108th Cavalry Regiment, are giving the Shinwari and Muhmandari Mountain border villagers of Afghanistan their own voice through the gift of radio.

The two stations, located in the Shinwar and Muhmand Dara provinces, will give outlying villages communication security and while countering Taliban propaganda.

Popularly known as the Radio in a Box, the new media program is one of the initiatives of the International Security Assistance Force counterinsurgency process, and will belong entirely to the Afghan people.

"It will not be a facilitator of military or security mandates," Afghan Border Police, 6th Kandak commander, Col. Niazy said. He punctuated the importance of the mission by stressing how the station's messaging will embrace the needs of the community. "It will be a powerful tool to give our people a voice - a resource. Our mullahs, district government leaders, or our local shop keepers and villagers will have full access and know that they can come to us in a crisis for honest information."

The Kandak headquarters is a temporary location for the Shinwar radio station. It was also once the site for Radio Spin Ghar, part of a 2005 independent media opportunity project called Support for Independent Radio Stations in Afghanistan, which was co-sponsored by U.S. Agency for International Development.

Both stations are fully funded by the coalition with Afghan National Security Force partners offering security, and employ full-time local Afghan station managers and on-air personalities.

"The Gate" (102.1 MHz FM) began airing full-time Jan. 17 at Forward Operation Base Torkham in Muhmand Dara province near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The Shinwar station [95 MHz FM] celebrated its debut Jan. 21 during the anti-Taliban Shinwari Pact jirga. The gathering of about 170 tribal representatives, a first of its kind, was organized by the 6th Kandak ABP and prominent tribal leaders. It was held embracing the strictest traditions of the six district Shinwari tribal councils to denounce Taliban tyranny and passive governance. The radio station gave prominent Afghan leaders and security forces a new media platform to announce their solidarity during the station's first broadcast.

"It brings us together as one community," Malik Usman said of the opening and the reading of the council's decision to stand with their uniformed brothers in arms. "We can share information with the people immediately when a crisis is identified and ensure their safety."

Council elders received gifts of hand-held radios at the conclusion of the jirga. The same radios will also be distributed by ANSF and coalition forces during patrols to outlying villages.

Niazy welcomes the new media as an extension of service to the people and says programming will be created by local people with call-in segments and unique on-air radio talk shows that will engage government and village officials.

"The station will have a strict traditional format, from the reading of mourners' names, to jirga results and the distribution of public service information," Niazy said. "They will celebrate with music programs, but we can reinforce their personal security with information."

Forced to shrink, Army National Guard gets picky

By Meghan Barr, Associated Press
Posted September 3, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Suffer from a bad case of acne? That could disqualify you from joining the Army National Guard. Too many speeding tickets? In today's slimmer, smarter Guard, that could keep you out, too.

Under pressure from the Pentagon to trim its ranks, the Guard has been quietly phasing in new restrictions that make it harder to enlist.

"To get in now, you have to be the cream of the crop," said Sgt. 1st Class Brian Clum, a recruiter in Ohio.

Military officials portray the cutbacks as an effort to trim excess from a Guard force that was bloated from years of successful recruiting, especially during the recession.

Under restrictions issued by the National Guard's top recruiting commander early this year, the maximum enlistment age was lowered from 42 to 35. And the minimum score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test, the exam required by all branches of the military, was raised for the Guard from 31 to 50 out of a possible 100.

Also, the Guard stopped forgiving potential recruits for offenses such as theft, assault, driving under the influence or chronic lawbreaking. And it stopped issuing medical waivers, which allowed recruits to be admitted despite health problems as serious as an extreme food allergy and as minor as a painful bout of acne.

In addition, the Guard's budget for bonus money has been cut. While most recruits since 2006 got $20,000 just for signing up, now only a precious few are eligible for any bonus money at all.

Col. Mike Jones, the Guard's top recruiting commander, said a higher percentage of applicants are being turned away compared with just a few years ago, though he would not give precise figures.

For some recruiters, the shrinking Guard is a source of frustration and envy, particularly since the regular Army is growing.

"We literally turn people away every day that want to serve and we can't take them," said Lt. Col. Anthony Abbott, recruiting commander for the Georgia Army National Guard.

It's an about-face from just a few years ago, when the Guard embarked on a recruiting rush with the start of the Iraq war. In 2003, the Guard was at its lowest strength in history with about 330,000 members, down from an all-time high of 457,000 in 1989.

In May, the Guard accepted 3,026 recruits, compared with 5,311 in May 2008. But the Guard gave no figures on how many men and women applied.

John Pike, director of the military think tank Globalsecurity.org, said the government is trying to reduce the outcry over the heavy use of the Guard in the Iraq war and wants to return the force to its original part-time status.

"They used the Guard a lot more than they had planned several times in Iraq just because that was all they had," Pike said.

The tougher enlistment standards may have worked all too well. In June and July, the Guard failed to meet its recruiting goals because of what Jones said may have been a combination of the worsening bloodshed in Afghanistan and the higher standards.

In fact, over the past couple of weeks, Jones told Guard commanders in 40 states they are free to reverse some of the restrictions.

"We might have cut a little too deep, too fast," Jones said.

Is Pentagon responding to public anger?

There are suspicions inside the Guard and out that the reductions are part of an effort to shift the burden of fighting overseas onto the active-duty Army and ease the public outcry over the way that Guard units -- part-time soldiers normally called into action during hurricanes and other disasters at home -- have been sent on long, repeated combat tours in Iraq.

In fact, while the Pentagon has cut the National Guard by about 9,000 soldiers to 358,200 over the past six months or so, the nearly 549,000-strong active-duty Army is under orders to recruit 70,000 new soldiers by the end of September and 22,000 more in the coming fiscal year as the fighting in Iraq winds down and the war in Afghanistan escalates.

— Associated Pr

Georgia Soldiers engage Afghan tribal leaders

NANGARHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Dec. 2, 2009 – Soldiers of Calhoun’s 1st Battalion, 108th Cavalry and their Afghan partners bedded down for the night on Nov. 18 at the Afghan National Police Achin District Center here in preparation for a meeting with Shinwari tribal elders and Afghan security personnel.

Guard plays host to Cobb ‘commanders’

MARIETTA, Nov. 10, 2009 – Guardsmen at General Lucius D. Clay National Guard Center and Dobbins Air Reserve Base, played host recently to members of the Cobb County Honorary Commanders Class of 2009.

This is the second time the two organizations have gotten together since the Guard’s move to the former Naval Air Station (NAS) Atlanta last year. As a Cobb County Chamber of Commerce program, The Honorary Commanders have been visiting the Guard and Reserves for at least a decade branch to become more familiar with each.

During their day-long tour, the group of 22 area businessmen and community leaders received briefings about the Army and Air Guard’s role – at home and abroad – and had the opportunity to meet, and talk, with Soldiers and Airmen.

“Thank you for what you do every day in supporting our organization, our Guardsmen and the military as a whole,” MG Terry Nesbitt, Georgia’s Adjutant General told the group during their morning briefings. Nesbitt, along with Maj Gen Scott Hammond, commander, Georgia Air National Guard; BG Maria Britt, commanding general, Georgia Army Guard; and COL Mike Scholes, Georgia Guard director of operations they spoke with the group about the Guard’s capabilities, its mission, vision and core values.

Staff members also discussed current and future operations and community support missions.

“I, we, applaud you for taking the time to be here, and for showing interest in who we are and what we do,” Britt told the group. “Thanks to all of you, and everyone else who, ‘gets it.’”

Once the briefings ended at Guard Headquarters, the honorary commanders boarded a bus and visited the 4th Civil Support Team and Georgia’s Counterdrug Task Force.

Later they received presentations on the Air Guard’s StarBase Program, which focuses on elementary students, primarily fifth graders. The goal of this program at Dobbins and at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, is to motivate students to explore science, technology, engineering and math as they continue their education through “hands-on, mind-on” activities.

The group also received information on the Guard’s Youth ChalleNGe (YCA) Program. With a campus at Augusta’s Fort Gordon and Hinesville’s Fort Stewart, YCA’s 22-week curriculum targets Georgia’s at-risk teens, age 16 to 18, through a program that teaches them such things as academics, life-coping skills and responsible citizenship. It helps them achieve their high school equivalency degree.

 Victoria Turkey, director of marketing and corporate relations for Prime Power Services Inc., in Austell, said she and many among her group learned much about the Guard during their visit.

“All of us [Honorary Commanders] are pro-military, and as much as every service member serves our state and our nation, we serve them,”said Turkey, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant. “And as we support the service member, we also support his, or her family members.

“The more we know, , about the military, the better we can assist them all whenever they need us,” she added.

South Carolina Guardsmen Go Home for Christmas

COLUMBIA, S.C. - About 200 South Carolina Army National Guard men and women will come home for the holidays now that $35,000 has been raised for their bus transportation from Wisconsin.

A spokeswoman for Lowe's Home Improvement of Mooresville, N.C., says the firm chipped in $25,000 to bring the troops home for their 10-day leave.

Julie Yenicheck said Thursday the firm heard from its employees about the soldiers. Private donations are needed because federal regulations bar soldiers from traveling at government expense while they are on leave.

The group includes members of the 1222nd Combat Engineers from Fort Mill and individual volunteers who were training at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.