BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer
WOODBRIDGE – Sgt. 1st Class Robert Whitsell of the U.S. Army said he could and would write a book about his 18 years of experience in the military.
“I’ve been keeping a journal every day,” said Whitsell, who has been deployed to Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan over the years. “I could talk for hours about my experiences about Iraq, where I feared for my life every day because we were being shot at.”
Whitsell, 40, was one of four soldiers in the 63rd Ordnance Battalion [Explosive Ordnance Disposal] at the Fort Dix military base located in Burlington County to attend and be honored at the first collaboration of the Federation of Indian Association [FIA] and the Northern Chapter of the Association of the United States Army at Royal Albert’s Palace in Fords on May 22.
Whitsell, who weighed the options of industrial and dairy life in Ohio, decided to join the military at the age of 23.
“I was already married with three children,” said Whitsell, who said now he is looking forward to retiring in two years and becoming a consultant in the Homeland Security field.
PHOTOSBY SCOTTPILLING staff “I didn’t have the intention to stay for 20 years, but after my first year, I was sold with the military training and the education it has given me,” he said.
Whitsell, with his unit of 35 soldiers, returned in March from a one-year tour at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. The 63rd Ordnance Battalion monitored subordinate units, clearing and diffusing unexploded ordnance from areas surrounding Bagram Airfield.
“This is a way we can give back to the soldiers who are fighting terrorism,” said Albert Jasani, owner of Royal Albert’s Palace. “This is one of the ways to show that we are thankful and appreciate all that they do. I want to continue this forever, and since this is the first year, next year will be bigger and better.”
Shobhana Patel, co-owner of Royal Albert’s Palace with Jasani and president of FIA, added that since this year is the 60th annual Indian Independence Day, it gives them more of an incentive to honor the soldiers who sacrifice their lives and give up their security for the Asian-Indian community as well as for others.
Members of the New Brunswick High School Army ROTC [Reserve Officers Training Corps] under the direction of Senior Army Instructor Maj. Harold Woody marched and showed their colors for the ceremony.
Col. R. David McNeil of Fort Dix was the ceremony’s guest speaker. He assumed command of Fort Dix in June 2003, following a tour of duty as the deputy chief of staff for Army Reserve Affairs of the 3rd U.S. Army Coalition Forces Land Component Command and U.S. Army Forces Central Command, where he was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
McNeil, with more than 28 years of Army service, has served in the United States, the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Each soldier had their own story about their experiences in the military; however, many expressed what many people fail to see.
“There’s so many personnel just out of their goodness of their heart doing humanitarian work over there,” said Sgt. Rodney Harmanson, 38, of the 63rd Ordnance Battalion. “These good young men and women go help people that they don’t really know.”
Whitsell said there are civilians, from doctors to engineers, helping to build an infrastructure that will have a winning and lasting effect on the people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Harmanson, who was deployed to Iraq during Desert Storm in 1990, Kosovo and Afghanistan, said he followed in the footsteps of his brothers and joined the Army in 1986.
“The Army has given me a sense of pride and gratitude and has made me enjoy freedom,” he said.
Capt. Michael Kosuda, 31, who grew up in Bergen County, is an assistant professor of military science at Rutgers University.
“I always wanted to serve in the Army since I was a kid,” said Kosuda, who entered the Army ROTC at Boston College with an Army scholarship and after graduating entered the Army in
1998. “The Army has given me opportunity and skills.”
Kosuda served as a company commander at Fort Hood, Texas, for three years and was deployed to Samarra, Iraq, for the first time in 2003. Prior to Iraq, he had been deployed to Bosnia in 1999 to patrol the cities of Tuzla, Lukavac and Sebring.
“I was company commander over 200 soldiers,” said Kosuda.
“Our mission was to recruit and train a platoon of Iraqi soldiers, the Iraqi National Guard Battalion,” he said. “We first started with 30 soldiers, and as time went on it grew. It took us four months to find a good solid Iraqi leader that we could train to start being a leader of the group.”
Kosuda described the mission as challenging.
“The biggest point that people have to recognize is that their society had been destroyed with 35 years of a dictatorship and corruption,” Kosuda said. “The society was far below zero. The civil society of work and education has been taken away from these people that we here take for granted.”
When Kosuda finished his tour of duty in 2004, he described the work and training of the Iraqi soldiers as still “a work in progress.”
Sgt. Davonte Kelly, 23, of the 63rd Ordnance Battalion, who grew up in Saginaw, Mich., said he joined the Army in October 2003 for a better opportunity for himself. Afghanistan was his first deployment.
“It gave me a different outlook on life,” said Kelly, who will head with the 63rd Ordnance Battalion to Fort Drum in New York on July 1.
“When I saw their lifestyle of sand houses, it just made me appreciate being free more,” he said. “Also seeing the children, since I have a 2-year-old daughter, has made me turn my life around and appreciate life.”
Sgt. Brian Williams, 25, of the 63rd Ordnance Battalion, who grew up in New York, joined the Army in February 2001 and said his recent deployment to Afghanistan would be his last.
“I joined the Army to pay for school,” said Williams, who has been deployed to Iraq twice. “Every place is different. I definitely felt safer in Afghanistan than Iraq.”
Williams said his options are still up in the air on what he wants to do after leaving the Army, but he said he was interested in doing paralegal work for the military and moving to the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Sarah Bernal, 25, who is a second lieutenant and a platoon leader, has served with the Teaneck Armory, 250th Brigade Support Battalion F Company and the New Jersey Army National Guard for nine years.
“My father, brother and sister went into the Army, and I followed,” Bernal said. “It also helped to pay for my tuition, where I studied criminal justice.”
Bernal was deployed to Balad and Mosul, Iraq, in 2003 for a year.
“I was with the transportation unit, where we transported supplies,” Bernal said. “Being in the Army has molded my life to be more positive.”
Bernal said even though there were always concerns about being deployed to Iraq, “it all came down to the job and applying your skills to that job.”
“Despite if someone likes it or not, it’s always about the man or woman next to you,” she said.