Department of Minnesota
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"A Perspective" - A Minnesotan Reports from Iraq (2006)

Memorial Day, 2006

LtCol Rob Chaucierre, USAR, on active duty long-term duty assignment in Germany.

This photo was taken in Sonthofen, Germany, November, 2007, during a Transportation Command assignment. He is currently National Council Rep for MN and is a long time member of ROA Minnesota.

"Since I arrived in Heidelberg, Germany in July 2007, I'm obliged to provide ROA a photo from the annual Joint EUCOM Deployment & Distribution Conference (JEDDC) I attended a few weeks ago (13-16 Nov 2007) in Sonthofen, Germany. Sonthofen is one of Germany's southern-most cities near the Austrian border. The US Europe Command (USEUCOM), based in Stuttgart, hosted the event; theme being "Improving the Process" with over 300 experts traveling from CONUS and OCONUS and representing the US Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), Surface Deployment & Distribution Command (SDDC), Army Materiel Command (AMC), Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), US Army Europe (USAREUR), US Air Force Europe (USAFE), US Navy Europe (NAVEUR), and US Africa Command (AFRICOM). To learn more, please go to www.deploymentanddistributioneurope.com.

Former ROA Board Member Leads Urgent Needs Efforts in 2006-07

Twin Cities Navy Chapter and Former MN Board member, LtCol Thaddeus Jankowski, USMCR, returned in April from
18 months of active duty with Headquarters, Marine Forces Central Command (MARCENT), where he had a key role in advocating for many urgent material needs, including the MRAP vehicles.

From October 2005 through March 2007 LtCol Jankowski served as a war planner and Requirements and Programs Head, War Plans Directorate (G5), MARCENT.  In this capacity he advocated for a variety of urgently needed equipment, helping with such issues as "mine rollers" (attached to the front of vehicles to blow mines with pressure plates), to mine-protected vehicles, to a variety of surveillance systems. 

Most significantly, he was recognized as having a key role in the Mine-resistant Ambush Protected initiative, or MRAP vehicles.  As a result, the Army and the Marine Corps will be leaping ahead very significantly in wheeled vehicle technologies in a very short period of time.  Most importantly, Soldiers' and Marines' survival rate for IED's will improve substantially through 2007 and beyond.

"First, let's get one thing straight: "deployment" in Tampa, FL, for 18 months, near the CENTCOM Headquarters, is not exactly a physically challenging mobilization," LtCol Jankowski said.  "But it was a pleasure to join my fellow Marines at Headquarters, MARCENT, and to help make changes at the operational level of war that are decreasing casualties and leveraging newer technologies that improve our war fighters' ability to take the fight to the enemy even more effectively."
 

In Iraq in the Spring 2006 - All of the above are originally from Minnesota

Above:  MAJ Charles Erickson (left), LTC Todd Spillers, and (right) MAJ Mark Mahowald, USAR (ROA MN Member)

Above: In Afghanistan in the Spring 2006 Col. Gary Carlberg, USAR, (front, left) (Minnesota Army Reservist). Details.

Above: Col. Rodney R. Peterson, USAR, attached to the 3rd Corps Support Command (COSCOM), Des Moines, Iowa, in Kuwait then Iraq (here shown with ASV) in the fall of 2005 (ROA Minnesota Member). Details.

"Amateurs discuss strategy, professionals discuss logistics."

Above: In Kuwait (2003), CW3 Nick Goodwin and CW3 Kevin Appel, USAR, right (ROA Minnesota member)

Source: MAJ John F. Rosnow (ROA Minnesota member, back row, third from left)