voodoo54

Male

Honolulu

Hero, Gurps, Flames of War

I grew up an army brat, moving around the country till I was 16 when my dad retired. Decided to skip college and joined the army in '94 the day I turned 18. I graduated One Station Unit Training as an Infantryman down in Fort Benning, Georgia. My first assignment was with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell. I spent three years there serving as a rifleman, machine gunner, and team leader. I decided I wanted to jump out of airplanes not just helicopters so I went to airborne school in '98 and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. Spent two years there jumping out of airplanes serving as a team leader and squad leader. Decided I had enough playing army and wanted to deploy somewhere and do "real" missions. At that time in the late nineties the only units that where doing real world missions (besides SOF) was the Germany based units (Bosnia and Kosovo) and the 10th Mountain Division (Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti) out of Fort Drum, NY. It was easy to ask for reassignment to Fort Drum because nobody wants to go there (6 months of winter and -30 degree temperatures I don't know why). I spent seven years in the North Country as a squad leader and platoon sergeant. I deployed three times to overseas missions while there. First was a peace keeping mission to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt we call Multinational Forces and Observers for six months. We were there to make sure Egypt and Israel didn't go to war. I got to see the Pyramids which were neat. Then 9/11 happened while we were over there and thought because of our location we would be the first ones sent to where ever to take the fight to the bad guys (generic name to whomever wants to cause bad things to happen to America and/or it’s citizens). But the big army was like nope you guys are staying where you’re at to complete your mission. Anyway it wasn't long after we got back to home station that we got our chance to go fight the bad guys and we got it in spades. My first combat deployment was in 2003 when we were sent to Afghanistan. We spent nine months running around Bagram airbase, Kunar, Nuristan, and Ghazni provinces. There weren’t many US troops in Afghanistan at the time (Iraq was in full swing) so we were basically running around playing whack a mole trying to find the Taliban/HIG/Haqani network/Drug traffickers/Criminals and whoever else didn’t like us over there and didn’t want a democratically elected national government. For a good read on the first few years of OEF try “A Different Kind of War” by Dr. Donald P. Wright. 18 months later (’06-’07) we were back in Afghanistan this time operating mostly around Paktika province with a few months spent back in Ghazni province. A good read on this period are the books “Outlaw Platoon” by Sean Parnell and “War” by Sebastian Junger. After 16 months we returned to Fort Drum. By this time I was tired of getting shot at so I asked to go down to beautiful south west Louisiana at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk to be a Combat Trainer. I spent three years down there certifying platoons and companies to deploy to OIF and OEF to conduct combat operations. I was then assigned to Fort Knox as a First Sergeant with the 1st Infantry Division. I deployed again to Afghanistan (’11-’12) for a 12 month tour this time operating out of Ghazni province the whole time. Trying to get my old company commander to write a book on our experience over there, for now you can go to you tube and type in “ghazni extended patrol” and watch one of my platoons doing army stuff over there. I am currently assigned as the Operations NCO for a Training Support Brigade at Fort Shafter, Hawaii with my beautiful wife and 5 great kids.
I have played RPGs off and on since the early ‘90s, mostly Hero and GURPS. The genres I enjoy the most are Fantasy (Turakian Age, Bane Storm), SciFi (Terran Empire, Traveller, Vorkosigan Saga) Pulp, and Monster Hunting (MHI). I have recently started playing table top war games, specifically Ogre (sjgames) and Flames of War (Battlefront).

Infantryman