Battling the Storm Within

Sunday, February 17, 2019

‘Sir, I Never Thought I’d See the Day I’d Be Working for a Colored Officer’


“Sir, I never thought I’d see the day I’d be working for a colored officer.” These were not words I expected to hear, in 2003, from a senior enlisted soldier. It was winter in Iraq’s Anbar Province, and we were standing in the bay of an abandoned train station, where our unit now lived. 

As the maintenance officer, I oversaw the bay, where we labored to keep a fleet of vehicles in shape for missions on Iraqi streets. Worn track pads and tires surrounded us. Grease-covered soldiers worked on heaps of metal left inoperable by combat.


No comments: