Day 36

Name: Walt Howell

Profession: Sergeant Major in the US Army

Location: His home in Oahu, Hawaii

Question: Why are you where you are right now?

Answer: I chose to serve my country

“I initially joined the US Army to further my education because they were offering money for college. But since I’ve found my niche of what I like to do, I’ve continued that for the past twenty three years…. I plan on continuing for two more years for a total of twenty five. And then I plan on, after returning from the military, teaching history…. I feel that my vast experience and by my travel around the world, I can relate personal experiences that are all part of not only our history, but the world history…. I have been to Japan, Korea, Thailand, Guam, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, Kuwait…. I actually was most intrigued with Korea because of how they preserved their heritage and they still kept the same rituals that they did a thousand years ago, as far as changing of the guards at all their temples and palaces…. I was in Korea for two weeks. It was enough. I got to go up to the DMZ, the Demilitarization Zone there, where it separate North and South Korea. It’s pretty amazing how two countries, which is actually one country divided, have so much hate for each other. There’s minefields and guards, constantino wires, barbed wire, fences all dividing that country in half there. That was pretty interesting. And I went into a UN building that was on the border, so half the building’s on the North Korea side and half the building’s on the South Korean side. So I actually did go into North Korea by going to the far end of that building.”

“I was in Iraq for one time fifteen months, and another time six months. Iraq, just like any other third world country, it’s amazing that for as much money as they could have, they focus on just the elite class. So take for one of Saddam’s palaces, it’s made out of gold. It has swimming pools and everything else like that, and his countrymen are living in tin shacks. Ten people to a ten by ten room with no water supply. No latrine or bathroom/restroom facilities or anything like that. The country has definitely got wealth within the country, but how they disperse the wealth is unbelievable…. The reason why [the war] has so much controversy is because it’s not a traditional, conventional war. We’re not at war with the country, you’re at war within the individual groups, whether the Taliban or the insurgents within the country. So as opposed to WWII, it was us against Japan or Germany, we’re in these countries at war where multiple coalition forces are against individuals, which are the terrorists themselves. So it makes it hard. People don’t understand. It makes it hard for us, obviously, to seek out the bad guys because they could be anybody. It’s not all countrymen. It’s small groups within the country. So you still want my particular view on it there? My view is I prefer to fight on somebody else’s soil as opposed to having to fight on my soil. I know my country, my family is safe. As long as there’s got to be a war, I’d rather go over there than them having to come here…. There is a foreseeable end in the Iraqi conflict that we’re in right now because they have more, I don’t want to say educated, they have more people that are able to step up and continue what the US and other coalition forces have been doing over there for the past five years. The problem in Afghanistan is it’s a lot more rural country that does not have the infrastructure and the political forces, as far as police and everything to continue that stuff. So it’s a little bit harder to end that one. And the borders surrounding, they’re able to get in and out of the country. So I’m not sure when the foreseeable end to that one would be. To give a date would be a lie, to say by 2015 we’ll have nobody in Afghanistan. If you think about how our country is made up and where our soldiers are at there, to this day we still have soldiers stationed in Japan, we still have soldiers stationed in Germany, and we still have soldiers stationed in Korea. So, I mean, it’s not like the war is over. In 1945, everybody came home from Japan. Here it is 2010, and we still have a major presence over there. For our presence to be totally gone, I don’t say so. Hopefully we’ll have the same partnership with these countries as we do with Japan, Korea, and Germany. But we shall see.”

“I’m a Twenty One Series, which is the military would relate to being an engineer. My title going through was a Combat Engineer, being on the other side of the fence as a Construction Engineer. Construction engineers build things. Combat engineers blow up things. Basically, to break it down, it’s infantry with a skill. So you’re on the front lines fighting the bad guys, but obviously if there’s an obstacle in the way, the engineers are called up to reduce the obstacle so that military forces can move on to complete the mission. My job now is to deal with all engineer issues in the Pacific. Our area of responsibility is from Hawaii to India, to include Alaska. So we own, as far as world mass of the globe, we own two thirds of the world in our area of responsibility…. I just came back from Thailand last week. We built five schools for the communities. So now our job is who got those schools? What five communities? What five cities? And then it’s to go and make a list of what other things you think the US could go and help out with. So saying what is the priorities and what’s not, not only with the countries that we support, but within our own country. Congress only gives you a budget of so much money a year, and the installation that’s in our region, we have to decide which projects are more important and which projects benefit more people and then make a priority list of who gets what, who gets when. Also, within all these little countries, as far as Somalia, Guam, Laos, also within my office, we have to do the point of process, so if someone was to attack those countries or if there was any humanitarian relief for any disaster relief. So when the tsunami hit Samoa, what we were going to do to help there infrastructure for all the collateral damage there. So, ‘hard’ depends on what you look as hard: hard choices or hard as a lot of work. I enjoy it so I don’t think it’s hard.”

“The point of process goes first you talk to the government officials of that country and everything. And then you got to do the research of past countries that we did because you got to make sure that things we build and the money that we put into it, we don’t want to build a schoolhouse in a region where there’s a lot of drug lords, and they’re taking over the building and it’s not helping anyone. So obviously it’s got to be in a community where there’s some type of structure of law enforcement or something else that’s going to protect the investment that we’re putting into it. And then looking back and saying, who has more of their fair share? In a third world country, do we build an additional school for someone who already has a school, or do we go to the most rural areas and give them, not so much a cultural shock, but so that they’re not just out in a field being taught by a teacher. You’ve got to figure out on an average, it’s a 60:1 ratio, children to a teacher in Thailand…. Next year, at this exact same time there, we’re going to build five more schools. So from today’s date until when we go back there a year from now, we will have a team that does nothing but all the planning conferences and go back and forth to Thailand to make sure that these are the five sites that are the most needed. These are the five sites that fits the communities and is a good fit all around. Things happen a little bit different faster when you’re talking about Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s like, this came up, this is what the government wants, and they just went out and did it without taking a year to actually doing all the planning, and whose going to benefit and is it in a good region and all of that. That could also be NGOs, or Non-Government Agencies, that go over to these places and everything with their pots of money and think they’re doing noble things for a noble cause. That’s the chance that you take, too. We built things in the Philippines and we go back a year later and somebody robbed all the pipes from the plumbing, because obviously that’s a hot commodity. There’s everything you got to look out for, like am I putting it somewhere that looks nice for a day until all the vandals come and take everything from it. It’s not an easy business.”

“In the position I’m in now, I’m getting first-hand information. So it’s not so much boggled. The military, just like any other organization, when you’re playing the telephone game, the more people it’s got to go through, the more information’s being changed and misinterpreted. So obviously if I’m up top, by the time it gets down to somebody who’s actually executing it, it might be confusing. And it is. And we’ll go back. Not only did we have US soldiers building these schools, but they were partnered with another country. So we had the Marines partnered, it was half Marines and half rock soldiers from Korea. That’s who built one school. We had another school built by the Navy, who were partnered with soldiers from Indonesia. So now you’re talking about the specs and codes. What we follow for electrical and plumbing and as far as the PSI for concrete, or whatever the case may be, but we’re in another country. So there’s a lot of confusion. You do half, you do half. Is it actually going to fit when it comes to the middle? So yeah, when you’re talking about an organization like the military that works with so many different partners, there’s going to be confusion on that end. And when you’re talking about there being hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Army, obviously there’s going to be confusion. Even when you’re stationed in Hawaii, and all of a sudden you’re stationed in North Carolina. There’s going to be different rules and regulations as you go from station to station or overseas or whatever the case may be. The lower you are on the totem pole, the more chances of being confused there is.”

“I think the military’s come a long way from the instances that happened in Vietnam and Korea. There were so many more laws and stricter regulations of things that were going on. As the information age goes on there, you’re not in such a remote spot that there aren’t people all around you. There’s media and there’s things all about. So as far as morality, I don’t think there’s that kind of stuff happening. I mean, obviously there is. There’s stuff that happens here and there. But the big picture? I don’t see it. I don’t have a personal issue. I’ve never seen things or done things, or whatever the case may be, that puts me in a state of ‘Should I really be doing what I’m doing?’”

“When it comes to children, what you’re close to is what you know. So when David was growing up there, that’s all he talked about. ‘I’m going to join the Army. I’m going to join the Army. I’m going to follow in your footsteps.’ As you get older, you start seeing what’s in the world that’s available to you. It’s my job to move every three years. That might not be something that everybody could handle. That’s the key reason David didn’t come back with us to Hawaii, because he was like, ‘Hey. I’m done with the moving. I’m done with the packing up the house, losing friends.’ You got to be ready for that lifestyle. And obviously with all my experience, I wouldn’t want them following me in my same job field. Because I know now the extremely high risk I take on a daily basis with my job, I wouldn’t want them to follow that. I got lucky and never had a mishap. I’m smarter in the military so I have a smarter job. If they want to do twenty years, they would get a job that would transfer over in the civilian sector. That said, I’m going to get out and be a school teacher, but if I wanted to get out and get a civilian job of what I do, there’s not too many jobs advertising in the papers, ‘I need a bomb expert.’ My resume wouldn’t be shining too much for typical employment.”