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, more than 500,000 refugees were trapped in the mountains along the border, dying at rates close to a thousand a day. 10th Group was the first ground force into northern Iraq, arriving on April 13, 1991, a week before the Marines. My job was managing HF radio teams—the communications backbone connecting SF teams spread across dozens of camps in austere terrain. Our network facilitated the interagency relief efforts that reduced the camp populations from 500,000 to 41,000 within months.
I shifted from operating systems to improving them—developing processes, refining training, and ensuring that what we built worked under pressure. I was the only Sergeant selected as Winter Environmental Training Instructor; all others held the senior rank of Sergeant First Class. I departed Fort Devens with the Meritorious Service Medal.
The in-extremis force
I was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group in Panama—the U.S. Southern Command’s In-Extremis Force, a high-readiness counterterrorism unit maintained at constant alert for crisis response across Latin America. The operational tempo was relentless.
I provided signal support during counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and special reconnaissance operations while also serving as a jumpmaster and providing personal security for the detachment commander during missions. I took part in Operation Inca Gold, a humanitarian de-mining mission, and contributed to Joint Task Force Safe Haven, processing Cuban and Haitian migrants.
During this time, I earned the Ranger Tab and the Master Parachutist Badge, and served as the detachment’s de facto technology lead—procuring new computer systems and training the unit on applications that improved daily operations. In September 1995, I officially reclassified from Signal to Infantry.
