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Alabama Ft. Hood soldier intends to deploy to Iraq

Posted today in The Birmingham News:

An Alabama-born Army officer who was shot three times during the Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, still has his good days and bad days, but he had a good one over the weekend when he rode on a float in the Saturday Christmas parade in his hometown of Eclectic.

“I had a wonderful time,” said Warrant Officer Christopher Royal, who was the parade’s grand marshal. Royal said he wanted to do what he could to support civic improvements in Eclectic and would be back in town next week to talk about that with local officials.

By mid-January, Royal, 37, will be following events in Eclectic at an even longer distance than he is now. He expects to be on his fourth deployment in Iraq.

“I plan on deploying … in January whether I’m at 100 percent or not,” Royal said Monday during a telephone interview while he was driving back to Fort Hood. “I’ve made provision to deploy and … I’m trusting God that that’s the right thing to do. I feel it’s the right thing to do because if it was the wrong thing, then he would have took me completely out of that realm. But he did not, he allowed me to be able to perform as a soldier, so I am going to continue to be all that I can be.”…

Read the full article here.

God bless you, W.O. Royal!

Bama Guard explosive disposal unit to get final training before Iraq

Printed in The Birmingham News:

Several dozen Alabama Army National Guard soldiers will head out for Camp Shelby, Miss., this week to begin final training for a mission that involves disposing of unexploded bombs and shells in Iraq.

A send-off ceremony will be Wednesday in Huntsville for the 441st Ordnance Battalion (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). Sgt. 1st Class Terri Baker, the unit’s personnel noncommissioned officer, said the 441st will spend several weeks at Camp Shelby and will head to Iraq sometime in January.

“We render safe ordnance that is found,” Baker said. “IEDs, all that.”

In Iraq, the 441st will work under the Army’s 1st Armored Division and will have four active duty Army ordnance disposal companies under its command, Baker said.

More than 1,500 Alabama National Guard soldiers and airmen have been serving in and around Iraq and Afghanistan. About 270 Guard soldiers, with the 135th Expeditionary Sustainment Command from Birmingham, are now training at Fort Hood, Texas, for a deployment to Afghanistan.

We’re standing by for Ft. Hood

Please keep the loved ones of those killed in the Ft. Hood shootings today in your thoughts and prayers!

Posted to Facebook earlier today:

Collecting cards and NEW stuffed animals for the families and children of the fallen/wounded heroes. Please send cards and stuffed animals/blankets/anything NEW that may brighten the life of a child to:

Soldiers’ Angels Warehouse
4408 PanAm Expressway
San Antonio, TX 78218

WE WILL FOCUS on the HOLIDAY OUTREACH as a major push. More details ShelleMichaels@SoldiersAngels.org

Family welcomes home soldier from Iraq

Courtesy of WAFF 48 News:

A Huntsville family is having a celebration. Corporal Cody Majors was welcomed home Monday afternoon by his family and friends. Majors is on his second tour in Iraq. He’s home for some rest and relaxation.

Majors’ mom says she’s happy he’s home safe.

“It means the world to me that he’s coming home safe. I miss him, he’s been gone since February,” said Pam Majors.

Cody is a 2005 graduate of Lee High School. His unit is stationed in Fort Hood, Texas.

(Video and photos are available here.)

Welcome home, Cody!

Double tragedy

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Staff Sgt. Richardson’s loved ones:

An Alabama soldier home on emergency leave from Afghanistan for his father’s funeral was killed in a wreck Monday night near Evergreen. Army Staff Sgt. Derrick Eugene Richardson died when his vehicle overturned multiple times about two miles south of Evergreen just before 9 p.m. on Conecuh County Road 29.

Richardson was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.

His sister, Shirley Dukes, said Tuesday that her brother had come home from Afghanistan to attend the funeral of his father, Willie Earl Travis.

“I loved him,” Dukes said of her brother during a telephone interview from a relative’s home, where many family members had gathered. “He was the most wonderful man. He loved his mother, his wife and his four children.”

Dukes said the family was already reeling from Travis’ death, and to lose Richardson was almost too much to bear.

According to the Mobile Press-Register, Travis, a resident of the Nymph community, was buried Monday.

Officers said Richardson was alone in his 2007 Chevrolet.

Aliceville loses a hero

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Specialist Brown’s loved ones:

Pickens County soldier dies in Afghanistan

Michelle Harris said she had been expecting a phone call from her daughter, who was serving with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.

Instead, she received the unwelcome news from an Army official that her daughter, 22-year-old Army Spc. Seteria L. Harris Brown, died while serving in Sharana, Afghanistan.

‘I was shocked and devastated,’ Harris said. ‘I still can’t believe it. I had spoken to her on the phone just a week before.’

Harris said she was told that her daughter died July 25 from a gunshot wound to the chest. An Army news release said Brown died of ‘injuries sustained in a non-combat-related incident.’

Exactly what happened isn’t clear.

‘All I know is what they told me,’ Harris said.

A spokeswoman at Fort Hood, Texas, the Army base where Brown had been stationed before deployment to Afghanistan, said Thursday afternoon that Brown’s death is still under investigation.

The spokeswoman said she did not know how long the investigation would take.

Brown was a few months into her second overseas deployment, her brother said.

She was an enlisted soldier assigned to Fort Hood’s 36th Engineer Brigade since February. She was sent to Afghanistan in April.

Brown joined the Army shortly after graduation from Aliceville High School in 2004. She enjoyed Army life and re-enlisted after her initial four-year contract expired not long ago, her mother said.

She had a seven-year-old daughter, Harris said.

‘She was such a sweet person,’ Harris said. ‘Everybody liked being around her. She always kept a smile on her face.’

Brown’s younger brother, Keiwan Harris, said he had been unable to talk his sister out of joining the Army.

‘It was something she really wanted to do,’ he said. ‘She was always an independent person.’

Brown’s decorations and awards include the Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon and Overseas Service Ribbon.

Services will be held 2 p.m. Saturday at New Canaan Baptist Church in Aliceville.