A 50 year old grandmother volunteering for service in Iraq...what a patriot
Sgt. Minnie Hiller
Posted on 07/20/2005 7:09:15 AM PDT by Irontank
Sgt. 1st Class Minnie Hiller set down her M-16 and lowered herself gently into a foxhole. Forty targets would soon emerge from the scrub oaks and pine trees of a Fort Dix firing range. Hiller, a 50-year-old widow and grandmother who works in civilian life as a high school counselor, would have to hit at least 23 of them to convince the Army she was qualified to go to Iraq.
"I don't care for guns," she said as she adjusted a stack of sandbags at the front edge of the hole and waited for the range master to clear her to begin firing. "I never was a very good shot."
Hiller is a family support coordinator for the 50th Main Support Battalion of the New Jersey National Guard.
The battalion shipped out in January for Forward Operating Base Speicher near Tikrit. Hiller stayed behind to minister to the needs of spouses, children, siblings and parents.
Family support personnel do not usually get sent into a combat zone, but Hiller wanted to go. She told the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Roch Switlik, that she thought she might be able to help prepare his soldiers for their return home. He agreed.
"I want to listen, be a counselor," Hiller said. "I want to go there to tell those soldiers that this is different than Vietnam, that everything is okay at home, that the community has been behind them 100 percent."
Switlik made arrangements for Hiller to be deployed. She reported to Fort Dix for training on July 5.
And there she was on steamy afternoon last week, crouched in a foxhole, dressed in full battle gear, preparing to prove herself competent at her least favorite part of soldiering.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
A 50 year old grandmother volunteering for service in Iraq...what a patriot
Sgt. Minnie Hiller
What a wonderful woman! Thanks for posting this.
God bless SFC Miller.
I hope you don't mind that I added a hankie alert. It sure brought a tear to my eye.
Jesus Christ almighty!
Dear God, please protect this woman. To have a mother-grandmother doing something like this leaves me at a loss for words. God bless the men and women who allow us to be free.
Read the article. She's not going to Iraq to be in a foxhole. She's volunteered to be a counselor in Iraq to prepare soldiers for their return to the states. But, because she is going to a dangerous area, she needs to qualify on the M-16.
What is this person even doing in the military? What she is doing is adding to the bloated logistical tail that is already wagging the fighting force? Who is paying her tax free wages? Who is paying for her free medical care?
Can she even meet the physical standards? She is going to be a drag on the medical system, the supply system and eventually(VA) all of us!
Stay Home Granny
This article is misleading. This lady is a Sergeant First Class, which means she likely has 20+ years military experience. It's not like she just recently enlisted.
All true, and considering her age, she's probably been in quite a bit longer than 20 years. However my 31 year old nephew in the Army Reserve (currently in Kuwait) is a SSG but last I heard was up for SFC. OTOH, I just read a story about a 58 year old National Guardsman, who died in a motorcycle crash in my hometown, who was also a SFC. (Hope it wasn't anyone I knew, the article didn't give his name).
Searched out an article in a local paper. No one I knew, but I know the location of the accident very well indeed.
That is even more scary that someone like that can stay in the military that long. When was the last time she qualified with a weapon? took a PT test? went to the gas chamber? Counseling soldiers that we love them?!?! That sounds like a real military MOS we need!
No, cousling their families. If Mama isn't happy, Pappa may not re-up. Important job actually.
She has to qualify on the same schedule as everyone else not in a combat slot, whatever that is.
The active duty Lt. Col. that I shared an office with last year, before he deployed to Kuwait and the rest of the SWA area, had to undergo the same sort of refresher training and re-qualification. Cut the Sergeant First Class some slack.
Not wanting to sign up on the website, I didn't read the end of the article, did she qualify? I'm betting she did, even if she "doesn't like guns".
That's nothing. There were quite a few NG helicopter pilots, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, who first got shot at in Vietnam.
You go, Grandma!!!
| Friday, November 4, 2005 |
Master Sgt. Minnie Hiller's cellphone immediately began ringing after a recent sandstorm hit Iraq, delaying the return of local National Guard troops. Hiller already was working 12- to 14-hour days at Fort Dix, preparing for the troops' arrival. But she took the calls, anyway. "Where is my husband?" "When is he coming in?"
After a year in Iraq, members of the Teaneck-based 50th Main Support Battalion have been returning to the States. But simply saying "welcome home" isn't enough for Hiller. The Passaic native is working with Guard officials to help 900 soldiers and their loved ones reclaim their lives.
Hiller is talking to families, giving them a place to vent. She's arranging welcome-home events and making sure there's enough food and drink. She's lecturing soldiers and families on communication skills that will be necessary after the reunions. Many of the returning soldiers are tired, hurt and angry. Their spouses, children and parents are lonely and needy. "Everything we're going to do will involve connecting the families back together," said Hiller, the family support coordinator for the Teaneck unit.
More than 2,000 U.S. service members - 39 from New Jersey - have died in the war. Since the Teaneck unit departed for Iraq, public support for the war has declined. The Guard says it's sensitive to the soldiers' needs. The military has learned its lesson from the Vietnam era, when troops were heckled at airports upon their return. "We're all going to be challenged as they come home," said Brig. Gen. Glenn K. Reith, adjutant general of the New Jersey National Guard.
Planes carrying small groups of troops are arriving weekly at McGuire Air Force Base, Hiller said. An additional 310 Guard members from New Jersey returned last week from duty in the hurricane-ravaged New Orleans region. The Guard has considered holding a large salute-the-troops event at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, but not until later in the year. Or it may do something at Fort Dix, in Teaneck or both.
Most of the Teaneck troops should be home before Christmas, Hiller said. Accompanying them will be troops from Missouri, Minnesota and elsewhere who were attached to the unit. Right now, the Guard is referring returning troops to the appropriate services. At Fort Dix, the demobilization process can take weeks to complete before the soldiers return to their families.
Military personnel assist soldiers in ensuring their paperwork is in order. The part-time Guard members seek job advice as they return to their full-time lives. Physicians, psychologists, counselors and chaplains also are available for conversation.
"I think it's important to continue a system that's working and not turn it off," said Brig. Gen. Maria Falca-Dodson, a deputy adjutant general. Coming home isn't always a glorious moment, Hiller said. That's why she went to Iraq - to understand why some troops are frustrated, angry and withdrawn when they return. "I'm just keeping it real," Hiller said.
Whenever she heard profanity in Iraq, the 51-year-old widow - a grandmother of six - told the troops to can it. "Would you talk this way at home? In front of the children?" she asked them.
Still, she felt their pain. She baked in heat that burned like a frying pan. She shook from the bomb blasts."I'm going to die here," Hiller thought. The troops called her "mom." In Iraq, vehicles moved 90 mph to avoid explosives. That's why she hasn't driven much since returning home Oct. 8.
Some haven't heeded her advice to do the same: Last month, three soldiers got in an accident near Fort Dix, Hiller said. Two were injured seriously, but their conditions improved. The driver was unhurt, she said.
On Oct. 17, Hiller spotted the driver at Fort Dix while she was assisting the returning troops. "Do you have that police report?" she asked. He promised he would get it. "I'll go with you," she told him. That day, the troops were tired. Hiller, however, made sure they were awake and alert.
Ducking into the Fort Dix barracks where returning troops were staying, she found empty cookie boxes stacked sloppily on a table. Tired soldiers slouched in their chairs as they watched TV.
"I'm going to keep talking if you don't clean it up," she told the other soldiers. Later, she talked with a soldier who got metal in his eye. He wanted to go to his doctor near his East Brunswick home. But Hiller wanted him to take care of it immediately. She got a driver to take him to a Fort Dix physician.
Then there were the two soldiers who angrily complained about the paperwork. Hiller grabbed their arms, dragged them outside and told them to go to lunch. Hiller has occasionally gone "home" to the Teaneck Armory the past few weeks. There, she meets with families and volunteers and plans future events.
At an Oct. 13 meeting, Hiller posed for pictures, hugged family members and served pizza and ice cream. Volunteers stuffed envelopes with fliers for a pancake-breakfast fund-raiser. For more than hour, Hiller spoke to |the group. At times, her voice high then dipped low, like a preacher's. She warned families about the soldiers' struggles to adjust. "It's an emotional roller coaster," she told them.
For folks like Khandi Bethea of Newark, whose husband, Spec. Dexter Williams, is returning from Iraq, it was like hearing from a friend. "She's made sure we weren't forgotten," Bethea said.
The 50th Main Support Battalion
Headquarters: Teaneck Armory
| Monday, November 7, 2005 |
Sgt. Johnny McDaniel spent the past 10 months following orders and serving his country in Iraq. But on Sunday, his commanding officers were 9 and 16 years old.
"My kids pretty much have my day planned for me," said McDaniel, an Englewood resident who returned to New Jersey from Iraq last week. On his first Sunday back home, he and his family were honored at a pancake breakfast in Teaneck that was held to say thank you to returning members of the National Guard's 50th Main Support Battalion.
On McDaniel's agenda for the afternoon was playing video games with son Marcus, and taking his daughter, Amber, out for driving practice - mundane activities that might make other dads groan. But those were the type of things McDaniel missed most while in Iraq.
"Johnny always was very active in our children's lives. So it was hard on them not having him here," said his wife, Sonja McDaniel. When Marcus was playing in a championship junior football game, McDaniel scheduled a late-night cellphone call from Iraq to find out what the score was. When Amber was planning her Sweet Sixteen party, she e-mailed her father pictures of the gown she planned to wear and asked his opinion.
Supporters of the Teaneck Armory Family Assistance Center on Sunday said they appreciated the family sacrifices that McDaniel and other members of the battalion made while serving in Iraq.
John Annillo of American Legion Post 128, one of the sponsors of the event, said he calls the families of the troops the "silent soldiers" who protect "the home front" while their husbands, fathers and even grandmothers serve in Iraq.
The breakfast, which was held at the Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Teaneck, drew volunteers from veterans groups and the Teaneck schools as well as politicians who praised the troops for their service. Annillo read a letter from acting Governor Codey thanking "the brave men and women of the 50th Main."
Master Sgt. Minnie Hiller, 50, who heads the family assistance efforts at the Teaneck Armory and who returned recently from three months in Iraq, is one of the grandmothers serving in today's armed forces.
Hiller said she spent most of the past 18 months at Fort Dix before going to Iraq, and sacrificed time with her 10-month-old grandson, John Alston Jr., who, she said, "doesn't know me that well." "You're going to have to learn to say 'Nana,'" Hiller said, picking her grandson up for a hug while he was munching on a piece of pancake. Hiller, who has six grandchildren, said there are many grandfathers and grandmothers among the troops serving in Iraq.
"It's an older Army type of deployment," said Sgt. 1st Class Angel Rosado, 59, of Ringwood, who also returned from Iraq on Tuesday. His wife, Sonia Rosado, a Passaic County freeholder, said when she learned her husband was being sent to Iraq her reaction was, "You're too old to be going to war." She said she hopes her husband isn't asked to return, but "he's a model soldier. He still runs seven miles a day. And when you're very good they keep using you."
Hiller said Rosado served as a father figure to the younger soldiers in Iraq, and helped them get through tough days, including June 28, when Sgt. Manny Hornedo, a Brooklyn guardsman attached to the battalion, was killed in an explosion in Tikrit. "One kid said to him, 'I don't know if I'm going to get home,' and he told him, 'You're home now in your heart,'" Hiller said.
It was a fast 3 months, glad she's back OK.
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