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Sandy's Army Page

In 1986, in need of additional income to help pay for college, I joined the Ohio Army National Guard. I attended 2 months of Basic Training at Ft. McClellan, Alabama, and 3 months of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Ft. Lee, Virginia with a 76C specialty--Parts & Records Specialist. This training period was the same training received by members of the 'active' army--the only difference being that after my 5 months, I went home to Ohio to start 'weekend warrior'-ing. I was the 4th Honor Graduate from AIT, and my Basic Training Platoon's Trainee of the Cycle. (which, when all is said and done, means squat)

The National Guard holds drills one weekend a month, and has annual training for 2 weeks in the summer. At least, that's how it usually goes. In 1989, we did our annual training at Brim Frost '89 in Fairbanks, Alaska. But unfortunately, it wasn't in the summer, it was in January-and that year was one of the coldest on record. We all received certificates for being in the "50-Below" club. Highlights of that trip were standing on the pipeline (despite signs warning that we shouldn't) and mailing letters home postmarked from "North Pole, Alaska".

On Christmas Day, 1990, I recieved a call from my platoon sergeant informing me that our company had been activated for Operation Desert Shield. We left 2 weeks later for Fort Dix, New Jersey. There we stayed for one month, not knowing if we would actually be sent overseas-but getting all the innoculations as if we were! The first week in February we left, arriving in Damman, Saudi Arabia with all our vehicles and equipment. It wasn't very hot yet, the nights were actually downright cold! After a week or so waiting for orders, we convoyed North to make camp about one hour from the Saudi/Kuwait border. We lived in tents and chased away the scorpions and snakes. There were only around 15 women in our company and over 100 men. There was some interaction with the locals in the town nearby-some of them were exceptionally nice, but others were rude and obnoxious.

The following links will take you to pages containing photos from 3 periods in my military career:

or you can see all of the photos without frames

http://members.aol.com/bonchin/army.html -- Revised: 12/12/99
bonchin@aol.com

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