Combat and Crisis

Wartime infrastructure

In early 1990, I joined the 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Within a year, I deployed to southeastern Turkey as part of Joint Task Force Proven Force—the northern front of the coalition campaign. The ground war ended quickly. What followed didn’t.

After Iraq crushed the Kurdish uprising, over 500,000 refugees were trapped in the border mountains, dying at nearly a thousand a day. 10th Group was the first ground force to enter northern Iraq. I flew in a week before the Marines as the Group commander’s RTO, bringing core HF, tactical satellite, and crypto systems online to establish the command network. That lifeline held the operation together across austere terrain, integrating Special Forces teams, NGOs, and coalition units into a multinational effort that emptied the mountain camps within months.

From there, I moved from operating systems to improving them—developing processes, refining training, and ensuring what we built held under pressure. Selected as a Winter Environmental Training Instructor, I was the only Sergeant among senior Sergeants First Class. I departed Fort Devens with the Meritorious Service Medal.

The In-Extremis Force

I was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group’s forward-deployed detachment in Panama, the U.S. Southern Command’s In-Extremis Force—a high-readiness counterterrorism unit for crisis response across Latin America. We maintained wheels-up readiness around the clock and could deploy anywhere in the hemisphere within hours. The assignment included a clearance upgrade from Secret to Top Secret/SCI.

I provided signal support for direct-action, hostage-rescue, and special-reconnaissance missions. During operations, I also served as jumpmaster and as the detachment commander’s personal security. On the Honduras–Nicaragua border, I participated in an OAS demining mission, then supported Joint Task Force Safe Haven’s security mission at Empire Range, Panama. For that service I received the Humanitarian Service Medal; my unit was recognized with a Joint Meritorious Unit Award.

During this period, I earned the Ranger Tab and Master Parachutist Badge and served as the detachment’s de facto technology lead, standing up new systems and training the team to use them. In 1995, I reclassified from Signal to Infantry, formalizing a shift that began during the northern Iraq campaign.