After dark on the day he turned 22 years of age, Harold Storey bedded down with a few buddies in the basement of a French house near the Moselle River.
They had a birthday blast. Literally.
German artillery fire blew away the entire structure over their heads.
That was Sept. 21, 1944. Storey arrived in France on July 9, soon after the Allied assault on D-Day.
The painting depicting Harold Storey’s journey through World War II.
ContributedAfter wading ashore at Utah Beach, Lt. Storey had for the next 74 days led the men of C Company, 10th Infantry, Fifth Division — soon to be part of George S. Patton’s famous Third Army — in a constant running battle with Hitler’s retreating forces.
Fast-moving Allied forces flipped the script on a German military machine that gave blitzkrieg to the world. In 1940, Germany overran France and the Low Countries in just six weeks. Now Allied tanks and infantry were returning the favor, systematically liberating one town after another from Nazi occupiers: Saint-Lô. Chartres. Marne. Verdun. And Metz.
In Metz on Sept. 11, still just 21 years of age, Lt. Storey earned a Silver Star Medal, the United States military’s third-highest decoration for gallantry in combat … though he didn’t yet know it.
Lt. Storey and his men secured a key Metz bridge over the Moselle River, braving German fire in a headlong charge with fixed bayonets and war whoops. The lieutenant then directed C Company to a hilltop that strategically commanded Metz and its new bridgehead. He skillfully deployed 43 soldiers, all that remained of an original 165 after days of battle, along a gap in the defenses that looked vulnerable to the young man from the hills of north Georgia.
The Germans saw the gap too, and they knew the ground — Hill 386 was used to train German soldiers. If Hitler’s troops could counter-attack, split the Allied forces, and reclaim the bridge over the Moselle, they might stop the relentless advance.
The Germans attacked. They came in waves. They came for five straight nights.
Lt. Storey and his desperate GIs fought them off again and again with just two .30-caliber machine guns, one bazooka, and their rifles. Between assaults, German artillery shells rained down.
The beleaguered GIs held Hill 386 for nearly a week. At last, the Germans backed off. Pilots of Allied P-47 Thunderbolt fighter planes that lent air support in daylight estimated that 500 German soldiers lay dead on the slopes in front of Lt. Storey’s position.
The baby-faced Georgian ought never to have led that mountaintop defense. The morning he arrived at the Moselle River Lt. Storey was fifth in chain of command. By that night, he was the senior officer — all four of his superiors were killed or disabled.
Later, as his unit got some badly needed rest, a battalion executive officer told Lt. Storey he’d been awarded a Silver Star.
What for? The lieutenant asked, bewildered. I was just doing my job.
An American tale
The story of Harold Storey, now age 99 and revered as one of the most distinguished citizens in Rome, mirrors the story of 20th century America.
He was born into a rural world, like most Americans of 1922 . His family ran a local sawmill and other operations valuable to farmers and self-sufficient mountain families that commonly lived without running water, electricity and other modern comforts.
Storey came of age in the Great Depression. “Not everybody could afford to buy gasoline,” he remembers, “so some of the farmers took the tires off their automobile and put them on their wagons.” He worked side-by-side with the grown-ups at countless labors of country life — building barns and house additions, hoeing vegetables, cutting lumber, tending cows and lugging milk to the spring to keep it cool, then hauling buckets of fresh water back to the house.
Storey sits on his front porch today, peering out at his green suburban neighborhood across the Oostanaula River not far from downtown Rome. An American flag lolls in a morning breeze. Time has diminished Storey physically, and he needs a wheelchair. His mind, though, is still as bright as an August morning, and his expressive face seems overlarge, imposingly noble, like a Roman bust.
Storey built the family house in 1953 before Rena, his daughter, was born to him and another Rena, his lovely wife. (A son, Hal, came along in 1957.) Storey took out three mortgages on his white-columned brick home, paying by the month for decades until those installments finally violated his business sense. In the 1990s, he wrote a good-riddance final check to end the aggravating monthly mortgage payments.
He’d been shelling out the cursed sum of $104 a month.
Even during the Depression, Storey says there was never any doubt he’d go to college, never any doubt where he’d go, and never any doubt what he’d study.
“I wanted to be something big,” Storey confesses. “I decided I would rather live as a graduate of Terry College and the University of Georgia than do anything else, anywhere else.”
“I didn’t know there was anything else to do,” he says. “For my sense of self-worth, I had to be a good business person. I was concerned about my image as a family man.”
The drums of war beat steadily as Storey arrived on UGA’s campus on his birthday in 1939. Rumors of war were constant background noise as Storey enjoyed business classes, Alpha Tau Omega fraternity life, the Demosthenian Literary Society, Strahan House, and other attractions of university life. The youngster signed up for ROTC so he’d qualify to be an officer if war broke out.
That happened soon enough.
“A fraternity brother came running outside one Sunday yelling about an attack on Pearl Harbor,” Storey says. “I wasn’t the only one who had to look around to find out where Pearl Harbor was.”
Uncle Sam needed soldiers now, and ROTC units found themselves fast-tracked toward graduation. Storey took his Terry College BBA with a specialty in accounting early, in December 1942. He received orders to report to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, and in the blink of an eye was training to lead men in battle. He practiced soldiering in Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee and New York.
To transport troops to the European Theater the U.S. Military mobilized almost anything that floated. Storey made his maiden voyage across the Atlantic on a banana boat.
“We were so cramped,” Storey remembers, “that the four men in each cabin only had room between bunks to stand a suitcase on end for card games.”
Lt. Storey goes to war
He entered a dangerous world where events were shaped in faraway rooms — board rooms, war rooms, smoke-filled political rooms — but a world where every individual act might have consequences.
Storey’s son-in-law Bill Henderson describes that time perfectly in a very readable 2020 memoir, “A Man of Peace Goes to War,” written by Harold Storey with the help of a bright young neighbor, actor James Arthur Douglas, and Dekie Hicks.
‘A Man of Peace Goes to War: A Memoir’ recounts Harold Storey’s experiences during World War II.
Contributed“We see with Harold Storey,” Henderson writes, “the unusually personal and seemingly insignificant daily decisions that one Georgia boy had to make without any more preparation than a good heart, a trusty sense of love and duty, and an ability to see what had to be done and the courage to do it.”
Lt. Storey spent most of his tour de France on foot. He and his command marched east, town by town, hill by hill, through the fall of 1944, driving deeper and deeper toward Germany as the bitter winter of that year descended.
Then, on Jan. 22, 1945, the war ended for Harold Storey.
A ferocious German counterattack caved in a huge section of the Allied front — an assault known as the Battle of the Bulge. Lt. Storey once again led brave men in desperate defense of a position, only this time in snow and freezing temperatures.
That day, an artillery shell struck a tree limb over Lt. Storey’s head. The explosion instantly killed a man on either side of the lieutenant, and it almost killed the young Georgian too. Jagged shrapnel tore through Lt. Storey’s neck between his windpipe and jugular vein, and metal shards pierced his body.
This photo of troops moving through rows of fir trees in Luxembourg in 1944 shows the deep snow Harold Storey and his men would have experienced on Christmas Day. / Photo courtesy of the Truman Presidential Library and Museum.
Truman Presidential Library and MuseumLt. Storey’s comrades got him out to an improvised local hospital. After medics got him stabilized, Lt. Storey shipped off to hospitals in Luxembourg and France on his way to a less-tumultuous convalescence in Salisbury, England. In all, he spent four months in hospital rooms recovering from the life-threatening wounds.
Trade School challenge
When Lt. Storey at last was well enough to step out into the English springtime, he found a challenge that put his Terry College business skills to a remarkable test.
A U.S. Colonel dropped by with an assignment. The mission? Set up a technical school for GIs stationed in Europe who were idly waiting to return home. Many bore wounds, like Storey. Learning various trades as they waited would give them a better chance to reenter everyday life and make a living back in the states.
In Freckleton, a scenic town on the Irish Sea, Storey launched the complex large-scale project at a former B-17 repair site.
In this 2015 file photo, World War II Purple Heart veteran Harold Storey of Rome had lunch with Jackson Loy. Jackson invited Storey for a meal at East Central Elementary School on Veterans Day. Jackson is the son of Shannon and Lauren Loy.
File“There were classes offered in almost any field, such as art, business, industry, etc.,” he tells in his memoir. “They had classes for painting, operation of cranes, automotive repair, and many other mostly technical studies … The instructors, who came from all over the United States, were very good leaders in their fields.”
Lt. Storey put all his ingenuity into creating, from scratch, a basic trade school. He led efforts to borrow hundreds of beds and mattresses from nearby Oxford University. He oversaw details as fine as the design and creation of special uniforms for instructors, who come over from Westinghouse, General Electric, and other major U.S. Companies.
The school processed 4,000 students in each eight-week term, and it fell to Storey and his staff to house and feed and accommodate the restless GIs.
“It seemed to me like the most wonderful thing a guy could do,” Harold says, “to help a bunch of kids get back home.”
It turned out to be wonderfully healing work at another level.
“I’ve called it the ideal PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) experience,” Storey explains. “I had time to ease up and deal with the experiences of the war before going home. I had men around me I could talk to.”
Even so, Storey at age 99 still asks to keep a light on in his bedroom at night and even during naps. It comforts him to be able to see if he wakes up. He spent so many scared nights staring from a foxhole into darkness, knowing a deadly enemy lurked out there, unseen.
It’s a wonderful life
In 1945, Harold Storey came home. He met and married a beautiful young woman. They had beautiful children, then grandchildren, as they settled into a more predictable life in north Georgia. Harold and Rena, a professionally trained painter of museum-quality portraits including a notable sitting of her husband, recently celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary.
“Harold is a social being who is sensitive, resourceful, gregarious, of strong opinion, and fearless at times,” she says in her husband’s memoir. “He wants to change the world for the better. World War II was a defining and transforming experience in Harold’s life. With death occurring all around him, life took on a very different meaning.”
She adds, “When we were dating, his values and morality all resonated with me. Faith is very much a part of who Harold is.”
Otis and Barbara Raybon visit Harold Storey for his 99th birthday in 2021. Otis, the former publisher of the Rome News-Tribune, remembers Mr. Storey fondly. “Harold came by the newspaper often but as long as he was able he always came by on my birthday,” Raybon said. “I will always miss our conversations and the hidden advice he left me with.”
ContributedThe returning warrior went into business with his father at the S.I. Storey Lumber Co. (Storey’s brother, Bernard, came on board after his own military service in the Pacific.) The Terry skills helped again — business boomed in a nation booming after a war that left the U.S. Standing unrivaled on the world stage.
People who knew Storey saw him, every time he faced a decision, make the kind choice. It characterized his involvement in more than 30 different business, civic, and school organizations through the post-war years.
Storey shared the views of John Lewis, the Civil Rights champion who served Georgia for 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Storey says, “I always wanted, like the congressman, to look out for the down-and-outers.”
Is there a Silver Star for good citizenship? Storey would surely wear one.
He led one campaign after another in civic affairs in Rome — point man in efforts to create the Rome Symphony Guild, guiding hand in building the city library, champion of a men’s homeless shelter and a substance recovery facility. He served on boards or played major roles in support for local theater, the Red Cross, the YMCA, Kiwanis, and dozens more organizations. He sat on the advisory board when Berry College, near Rome, created its business administration graduate program.
Anyone who planted trees in the state of Georgia knows Harold Storey — he directed the Georgia Forestry Commission for eight years. People around Rome who needed money knew Storey too, as a charter director and organizer for First Rome Bank and First Community Bancshares. He directed the Chamber of Commerce, which honored him with a lifelong membership.
At First Baptist Church in Rome, Storey taught Bible study for a quarter-century. And it was the Storeys who led the church in sponsoring four Kurdish families seeking refuge in the U.S. After displacement in a new war. Storey’s family says they collected a truckload of clothing to send to Kosovo during that conflict, and they gathered and shipped almost 1,000 pairs of used eyeglasses to the Middle East.
“I learned from the start of my life,” Storey explains, “how to love somebody that didn’t look like me.”
In this 2016 file photo Harold Storey (left) and Bill Davies check out the framing inside the new William S. Davies Homeless Shelter in East Rome. The pricetag for the new 4,550-square-foot shelter was set at $508,987.
FileHe’s done much, much more. In recognition, Rome’s Heart of the Community Foundation in 2000 bestowed its annual award on him. The town turned out to honor Storey at a black-tie affair, cheering for the lion of their community as wildly as the liberated French cheered welcoming American troops 66 years earlier.
“The Heart of the Community Award is designed to honor individuals who could be considered unsung heroes,” awards committee chair Andy Davis told the Rome News-Tribune. “Mr. Storey’s involvement and dedication to numerous organizations in the community exemplifies the spirit of this award.”
Storey’s 2oth century is America’s. Both evolved from rural roots, held true to values through the challenges of a Depression and war, reached prosperity, grew to prefer city life, and offered honorable generosity to others.
A moment of truth
One vivid wartime moment illustrates the authentic compassion of Harold Storey.
During the Battle of the Bulge, he and his company bypassed two wounded German soldiers, an officer, and an enlisted man. Under fire and at risk, the GIs hurried on to a safe site without stopping.
A replacement medic in Lt. Storey’s unit, Private First Class Robert W. Cassels Jr., a favorite of the company, begged Storey for permission to return to the wounded enemy soldiers and treat their wounds. Though he had misgivings, Lt. Storey said yes.
A long time passed. Darkness descended. The medic had not returned. Storey ventured out alone in search of PFC Cassels.
He found the amiable medic. Cassels had been shot through the helmet, likely by a German sniper. His lifeless arm still embraced one of the wounded Germans he’d been helping with the final act of his life.
“My emotions nearly tore me apart!” Storey confesses in his memoir. “Anger raged through me like never before. It was expected for me to shoot the squirming and begging German men laying on the ground. I cocked and raised my carbine and pointed it at the captain.”
Then Lt. Harold Storey, age 22, a young man baptized in a creek named for his family and respected for his devoutness among fraternity brothers at UGA, remembered his better angels.
In this 2017 file photo, World War II veteran Harold Storey looks over the painting of his journey across Europe painted by Frank Murphy.
Doug Walker, file“Immediately, images of my family ran through my head,” he wrote. “Today was Christmas Day. Somehow, I thought that if I did survive, I would never want to remember that I had killed two helpless people on Christmas. I would not want my family to know I had done such a thing. It was really mostly selfish, with some compassion thrown in. I also knew this would not be a fitting tribute to the short and beautiful life Cassels had lived.
“I didn’t pull the trigger.”
The greatest
Journalist Tom Brokaw recounted Storey’s remembrance of PFC Cassels in his 1998 bestseller The Greatest Generation.
Brokaw realized that World War II veterans were fading away, and he attempted to gather and preserve their stories while they could still tell them.
Quote"Harold Storey was an emblematic member of the Greatest Generation as a warrior, a citizen and as a family man. We owe so much to that generation, especially during these troubling times. God bless Harold and my very best to his family."
Tom Brokaw
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Veterans Administration reported that the United States lost 245 World War II veterans each day to age and infirmity — a joyless casualty count. Of 16 million men and women who served in the U.S. Armed Forces in WWII, just 325,574 remained alive as of May 31, 2021.
Sitting with Harold Storey on a morning in August 2021, hearing his stories, watching the remarkable eyes that have seen nearly 100 years of history and some of the most terrible and most beautiful moments a life can offer, it’s easy to believe Brokaw.
So many owe so much — perhaps even freedom itself — to Storey and the soldiers still in line with him in these peaceful last miles of their long march.
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Fort Bragg's Special Forces, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs Induct Honorary Members
The Special Forces, Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs community named 20 new soldiers, civilians and veterans as distinguished and honorary members during induction ceremonies this month.
The inductees have built the organization through military and civilian endeavors from conflicts in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Somalia, Desert Storm, Grenada, Panama and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, commander of Fort Bragg's U.S John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.
“They are pillars of our organization because they helped really develop our organization and adopt these structures, training and every aspect in making this organization great,” Roberson said.
The inductees are committed to improving opportunities for men and women in uniform, through "their selfless actions over the years to promote the warfighting ethos and unwavering sense of pride and selfless service,” Col. Charles Burnett, deputy commander of the JFK Special Warfare Center and School said.
Special Forces Regiment Distinguished members Sgt. Maj. Matthew WilliamsSgt. Maj. Matthew Williams served with the 3rd Special Forces Group and received the Medal of Honor recipient for his actions on April 6, 2008, as part of an assault element inserted into Afghanistan.
After the lead element was attacked by an enemy machine gun, sniper and rocket-propelled grenade fire in the Nuristan Province, Williams helped lead a counter-attack up a mountain and across a valley of ice-covered boulders and a rapid, ice-cold, waist-deep river.
Williams moved a wounded team sergeant down the mountain, then went back up to defend the other soldiers, directing suppressive fire and exposing himself to enemy fire.
He helped lead Afghan commandos in a counter-attack that lasted hours, and continually exposed himself to enemy fire as the wounded were evacuated.
Lt. Gen. Bennett SacolickRetired Lt. Gen. Bennett Sacolick joined the Army as a private in 1981, later commissioning as an officer and joining the 3rd Battalion, 7th special Forces Group.
He is also a former troop commander of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta at Fort Bragg, serving during Operation Restore Hope-Somalia and Operation Desert Storm.
Sacolick’s other assignments include those as Chief of Current Operations for the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg with service during Operation Iraqi Freedom; deputy director for defense of the Counter-Terrorism Center at the Central Intelligence Agency; deputy commanding general and commander of the JFK Special Warfare Center; director of Force Management and Development at the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida; and deputy director of Strategic Operational Planning for the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington, D.C.
Lt. Col. Eugene McCarleyLt. Col. Eugene McCarley enlisted in 1955, serving 12 years in the North Carolina Army National Guard and Army Reserves, before volunteering for the regular Army in 1967 during Vietnam.
In Vietnam, he served with the top-secret Military Assistance Command-Vietnam Studies and Observations Group, a joint-service special operations unit.
He participated in Operational Tailwind, a cross-border penetration mission leading a company force into enemy-occupied territory in Laos.
He later testified in a Department of Defense investigation in the late 1990s, after CNN and Time Magazine falsely reported that nerve gas was used and alleged that women and children were killed during the previously classified operation.
The news reports were retracted, and the DOD investigation found that Operation Tailwind was conducted in accordance with rules of engagement, nerve gas was not used and the operation did not target American defectors.
Wounded twice, McCarley secured sensitive information and lead his fellow fighters to secure a crash site in Vietnam.
McCarley’s service continued past 1970, as he served with the National Guard and Army Reserves until 1995.
McCarley died Nov. 19, 2018, in Wilmington.
1st Lt. Phillip GonzalesRetired 1st Lt. Phillip Gonzales enlisted in the Army Security Agency in 1958 as a trained Morse Code inceptor. After completing airborne school in 1969, he was assigned to the 403rd, Special Operations Detachment, 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam.
Gonzales completed two tours in Vietnam, from 1969 to 1971, and was assigned to the 3rd Mobile Strike Force and various “A-teams” scattered from Northern Highlands to the Mekong Delta.
He received a Special Forces flash tab with 8th Special Forces in 1972.
While serving, Gonzales held jobs as a medical sergeant, intelligence sergeant and communications sergeant.
He’d continue service as a contractor with the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs’ Counternarcotic and Aerial Eradication program, working in Columbia for 20 years to develop medical and security areas of study, as well as trained guerilla armies, and participated in counter-narcotic and medical operations in war zones in Burma, Cambodia, Columbia, Sarajevo, Salvador and Panama with the Nicaraguan Contras.
Gonzales also worked as a medical officer in Iraq and Afghanistan after military retirement and has served as an advanced medical instructor with Joint Special Operation Medical Training Center for the past eight years.
Sgt. Maj. Terry PetersRetired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry Peters entered the Army on Sept. 14, 1983, and was assigned as an infantryman. to the 101st Airborne Division's 4th Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment.
He held various positions as a gunner, M60 gun team leader, fire team leader and weapons squad leader, before being reassigned to Korea during the summer of 1986. After completing the Special Forces Qualification Course in 1988 as a weapons sergeant, Peters was assigned to the 5th Special Force Group.
Peters has deployed in support of numerous missions, including Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield, before being reassigned to the Special Warfare Center and School.
In 2002, he deployed with Company B, 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Force Group in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
In 2003, he was responsible for all training at Camp Mackall as the 1st Battalion command sergeant major.
In 2004, he was assigned to the Special Warfare Center’s 3rd Battalion, becoming responsible for Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations training courses and the special operations language training program.
Peters served as the senior enlisted advisor to the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines as it conducted a mission in support of Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines from January to July 2007, and in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as the senior-enlisted advisor under 3rd Special Forces Group for Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan from October 2007 to May 2008 and January 2009 to August 2010.
Peters is the regiment’s outgoing honorary command sergeant major.
Master Sgt. Larry TownsendRetired Master Sgt. Larry Townsend served in the Army from 1972 to 1992, with 17 of those years with Special Forces.
Following completion of the Special Forces Qualification Course in 1978, he was assigned to the operational detachment under the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Force Group as a radio operation supervisor. After serving with a Special Forces Demonstration team, he was selected to serve with a Delta operational detachment in 1982 as a base station radio operator and promoted to section crew chief and also participated in the invasion of Grenada to complete a mission to rescue American hostages.
Townsend became wounded when an aircraft was shot down.
From March 1985 to May 1989, he was the principal drill instructor for an Army ROTC Battalion at East Carolina University.
He was later selected by the Special Forces commander to serve as a senior Special Forces doctrine and training analyst to review curriculum and doctrine used by Special Operation Forces units. He retired from the Army in 1992.
Townsend continued to serve as a civilian for the Directorate of Training and Doctrine at Special Warfare Center and School and Joint Special Operations Command, 1st Special Forces Command and deputy director of Operations Support Office and Sensitive Activities Officer for the Office of Special Warfare.
Master Sgt. Joe WalkerRetired Master Sgt. Joe Walker graduated from Special Forces training in 1967, qualifying as an operations and intelligence and weapons specialist.
He deployed to South Vietnam conducting reconnaissance operations with a 5th Special Forces Group detachment.
After a year-long tour, he volunteered for another year in combat with the Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group, a top-secret action unit that conducted operations behind enemy lines in Laos and Cambodia.
After his second year in combat, he joined the 46th Special Forces Company in Thailand, serving as an instructor for a then-classified CIA program that trained Thai military volunteers and Laotian irregulars for combat against North Vietnamese forces in Laos.
Walker rejoined the observation group for a third year in combat and insisted on finishing his tour when wounded Jan. 15, 1971.
After four continuous years in Southeast Asia, he was reassigned to a Special Forces unit stateside in 1971 and continued to spend more than a decade with Special Forces assignments until retiring in 1982.
After military retirement, Walker worked alongside U.S. and allied special operations personnel and foreign irregulars on six continents and served another 21 years as a civilian with the nation’s premier intelligence and paramilitary operations organization.
This year's Honorary Members of the Special Force Regiment are:
Capt. Chuck DeleotRetired Navy Capt. Chuck Deleot was an active-duty naval intelligence officer from 1967 to 1972 and retired as a captain in Naval Reserve in 1990.
In 1972, he joined the commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet staff as a computer specialist and became the technical director and deputy director for the Pacific Fleet Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence.
Deleot retired from the federal service in 2001, working as an occasional defense consultant for Science Applications International Corp. As a chief scientist and engineer.
In 2003, he volunteered for the Pinehurst-based Patriot Foundation as its president and chairman.
The organization provides scholarships to children of the conventional Army and Army Special Operation Forces servicemen and women who have been killed or wounded from the Global War on Terrorism.
Jim MoriartyJim Moriarty is a Marine veteran and Gold Star father who has served the military and Special Forces for four decades as a lawyer and advocate for Green Berets.
He was part of a team that sought to have the Army review the Medal of Honor nomination packet for Lt. Col. Paris Davis, one of the first Black officers in Special Forces.
He also advocated for Medal of Honor recipient Gary Rose, who was previously defamed for his role in Operation Tailwind.
Moriarty has undertaken several pro-bono cases for Gold Star families.
In November 2016, Moriarty’s son, Staff Sgt. James “Jimmy” Moriarty, was a 5th Special Forces Group soldier killed in Jordan along with staff sergeants Kevin McEnroe and Matthew Lewellen.
Staff Sgt. James Moriarty is credited with mortally wounding the shooter, saving another soldier’s life.
His father advocated for the U.S. And foreign governments for a full investigation after the host nation initially blamed the Americans.
Teresa NugentTeresa Nugent is a former Army telecommunications specialist who was assigned to the Air Defense Artillery Patriot Missile Battalion from 1985 to 1988.
In the 1990s, she started working in the medical nursing field and has spent the past 15 years involved in injury and illness cases involving active-duty special operations personnel.
She’s served as the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s nurse consultant since 2012 and has cared for more than 400 special operations soldiers, coordinating 30 medical evacuations of deployed soldiers and managing 10 Army Special Operation Forces amputees.
She is credited with recommending a streamlined process for traumatic brain evaluation and coordinating with Army Special Operation Forces and the Intrepid Spirit Center at Fort Bragg, along with developing treatment plans for Army Special Operation Forces amputees, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder patients.
Outgoing and incoming honorary regiment leadersAlso honored was retired Col. Fredrick Dummar, a former Special Forces operational detachment commander of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group; a deputy commander of Special Operations Task Force, Kandahar, Afghanistan; deputy commander of 7th Force Group; chief of staff and deputy commander combined Joint Special Operations Task-Force Afghanistan; executive officer of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command; chief of staff Special Operations Joint Task Force-Fort Bragg; and commander of the Afghan National Army Special Operations Command-Special Operations Advisory Group at Camp Morehead Afghanistan from May 2014 to June 2015.
Dummar is the outgoing honorary colonel of the Special Forces Regiment.
The incoming honorary colonel is retired Col. David McCracken.
McCracken is a former executive officer of the 7th Special Force Group who’s participated in Operation Just Cause and is a past commander of the 1st Special Warfare Training Group company and battalion, and 3rd Special Forces Group. He retired in 2004.
He is credited with developing the National Counter-Terrorism Center.
The regiment’s honorary outgoing warrant officer is retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Douglas Frank.
Frank previously served as the 7th Special Forces Group warrant officer, leading teams during Operations Just Cause, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
He’s served as chief warrant officer at brigade and command levels, including the 7th Special Forces Group, the 1st Special Warfare Training Group and the U.S. Special Operations Command's Special Operations Joint Task Force-Bragg.
He is credited with spearheading an Army-level study that led to the JFK Special Warfare Center and School becoming one of two organizations in the Army authorized to appoint warrant officers.
The regiment's incoming warrant officer is retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 James Korenoski. Korenoski previously served with the 5th Special Forces Group and has served as a weapons sergeant, intelligence sergeant, assistant detachment commander, detachment commander, company, battalion and group operations warrant officer and warrant officer institute instructor.
He was first selected as command chief warrant officer for the 1st Special Warfare Training Group and spent 31 years as 5th Special Forces Group’s command chief warrant officer, with deployments during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Somalia and operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and Inherent Resolve.
The regiment's incoming honorary command sergeant major is retired Command Sgt. Maj. Richard Lamb. Lamb deployed with the 1st Ranger Battalion during the Operation Eagle Claw 1980 mission attempt to free American hostages in Iran.
He served with Ranger battalions, two infantry battalions, four Special Forces Groups, two theater special operation commands and Joint Special Operations Task Force-Horn of Africa.
He was wounded during the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia, attempting to rescue American soldiers and had deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lamb is credited with negotiating an assignment for a Republic of Korea exchange officer to the U.S Special Operations Command and assisting Republic of Korea Special Operation Forces in transforming force structure and airlift capabilities.
He is also credited with developing an international directorate within the U.S. Special Operations Command to integrate 24 allied officers and 17 partner nations in trans-regional planning initiatives.
Psychological Operations Distinguished Members Col. Dorothea BurkeRetired Col. Dorothea Burke commissioned as a military police officer in May 1982 and served on active duty for 30 years, including more than 15 years as a psychological operations officer. She retired in May 2012.
As a military police officer for the 502nd Transportation Battalion in Germany, Burke managed deployment and redeployment of U.S. Forces to Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
As a psychological operations detachment commander with Company B, 6th Psychological Operations Battalion, she led program development in support of the Department of Defense’s response to the Rwanda genocide.
Burke later deployed to Panama to plan and lead a psychological operations task force supporting Joint Task Force Safe Haven and Cuban migrant operations.
She also deployed to Haiti, leading a task force in support of U.N. Missions.
Following the events of 9/11, Burke balanced competing requirements to support plans, exercises and operations throughout the area of operations, as well as operations in the Middle East.
When assigned to the Special Operations Command as chief for the Psychological Operations Concept Development Branch, she coordinated plans and programs supporting Department of Defense information operations during the War on Terror.
She later served as chief for the plans and program division of Joint PSYOP Support Element and deployed as chief of staff for Combined Task Force Fervent Archer, leading a mission in the Balkans in support of Special Operations Command-Europe.
Col. Michael SeidlRetired Col. Michael Seidl commissioned in the Army in May 1979 as an armor officer and was assigned to the 4th Psychological Operations Group in June 1994. He served the next 15 years in psychological operation positions including at the Pentagon as the director for military information support operations and psychological operations.
In December 1995, Seidl deployed to Bosnia as the first operations officer for the Combined Joint Implementation Force information campaign task force for implementation of the Dayton Accords, a peace agreement among the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, ending the war in Bosnia.
He took command of the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion in 1999 and was the first psychological task force commander to the NATO Headquarters in Kosovo.
From 2001 to 2003, he served as deputy commander for the 4th Psychological Operations Group and was assigned to operations for the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command in 2003.
Sgt. Maj. Neil HeupelRetired Command Sgt. Maj. Neil Heupel entered the military in August 1975.
He served in the Marine Corps for four years before joining the North Dakota National Guard in 1982, where he served for seven years before joining the Army Reserve.
Heupel served as command sergeant major for several units including the 13rth Psychological Operations Battalion, 353rd Civil Affairs Command and U.S. Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command.
He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, deploying with the 353rd Civil Affairs Command from September 2004 to May 2005.
His last military assignment with the Psychological Operation’s Commandant’s Office at the U.S. Army Special Warfare Center and School’s U.S. Army Reserve liaison.
Heupel also worked as an architect for 20 years and as a Department of the Army civilian serving as a strategic panner for Psychological Operations at the U.S. Civil Affairs Operations Command at Fort Bragg.
Retired 1st Sgt. Donald Barton joined the Army in June 1974, serving in various positions — from assistant gunner to a platoon sergeant and serving with the 1st Armored Division and 1st Cavalry Division.
In 1981, Barton reenlisted Army Reserve and reclassified as a psychological operations specialist.
In 1993, he returned to active duty and was assigned at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School and served two years as a psychological operations collective training developer and writer.
In 1997, he was assigned to Pacific Command Battalion, 4th Psychological Operations Group and served as the battalion's first operations sergeant.
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In 2001, he was assigned to 8th Army Headquarters in Seoul, Korea, followed by a 2002 assignment to the Pacific Command as a battalion operations sergeant.
In 2003, Barton served in the JFK Special Warfare Center School’s Career Management Field in the Directorate of Special Operations Proponent, where he initiated several proposals that contributed to the health of the force.
He retired after 36 years of service and currently serves as a civilian management analyst in the personnel proponent of the Civil Affairs commandant's office.
Psychological Operations honorary members Master Sgt. Aubrey LaFosseMaster Sgt. Aubrey LaFosse joined the Army in May 2007 and is assigned as a clarinetist to the Army Band, Pershing’s Own, where she’s spent her Army career.
She’s provided musical support for full honor funerals at Arlington Cemetery and military and diplomatic ceremonies in Washington D.C, including the White House and Pentagon.
Ronald ArcherRonald Archer joined the Southern Command’s Strategic Studies Detachment, 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg, in 1997.
He has written classified studies represented in the 4th Psychological Operations Group and 8th Psychological Operations Group.
He is currently a senior psychological operations intelligence analyst, with responsibility for Columbia and Ardean Ridge countries of Latin America, as well as Panama and Afghanistan.
In 2013, he became the deputy chief of the 1st Military information Support Battalion Cultural Intelligence Cell.
In 2018, he became the chief of the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion Cultural Intelligence Cell.
He has deployed more than 100 times since 1997 for nearly 2,300 days to Columbia, Afghanistan, Panama, Central America and the Caribbean in support of psychological operations.
Master Sgt. James KazikMaster Sgt. James Kazik is the chief arranger and music support group leader of the Army Band, Pershing’s Own.
Kazik enlisted in the Army in 2001 and has written more than 400 arrangements and compositions in support of high visibility missions including five presidential inaugurations, three presidential state funerals and general officer retirement ceremonies.
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In 2004, he wrote original music in support of the commemoration of the World War II memorial in Washington D.C.
Kazik has written several pop arrangements in support of the sergeant major of the Army’s “Hope and Freedom” tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kazik also composed original music regimental marches to the Joint Task Force Civil Support, 21st Theater Sustainment Command, and the Psychological Operation Regiment March and song “Libertas et Veritas.”
Distinguished Members of Civil Affairs Regiment Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Irizarry IIRetired Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Irizarry II served in the military for 36 years, retiring in August 2015.
He’s served as deputy chief of staff for the U.S. Army Reserve Command and Chief, Readiness Office of the Chief of Army Reserve.
His other assignments include executive officer for the undersecretary of the Army; commander of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade; chief of staff for the Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command; director of Army Special Operations Forces Proponency; and chief of civil affairs-civil affairs military operations training and doctrine development.
Irizarry also served as deputy commanding general for the JFK Special Warfare Center and School where he was responsible for coordinating the accreditation and recognition of the school as a training Center of Excellence.
His tour in support of contingency operations includes those to Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan with joint and multi-national units.
Brig. Gen. Cornelius WickershamBrig. Gen. Cornelius Wickersham enlisted in the New York National Guard in July 1915 and commissioned as a second lieutenant Sept. 13, 1916.
He served on the Mexican border in 1916 then deployed to France in February 1918.
Wickersham’s assignments included those with the 27th Infantry Division and Reserves.
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In March 1942, he became the first commandant of the School of Military Government at the University of Virginia, where he pioneered the Army’s first professional civil affairs education that continues today at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School.
In January 1944, Wickersham deployed to England and served as a U.S. Military representative to the European Advisory Commission which planned the post-war occupation of Germany.
He was deputy commander of the U.S. Group Control Council in 1944 and assistant deputy military governor until May 1945.
He continued to serve as a lieutenant general in the New York National Guard until his retirement in June 1948.
Wickersham died Jan. 31, 1968.
Col. James WolffRetired Col. James Wolff commissioned as a military police officer in 1987 and served as a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
He was assigned to the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion after attending Naval Post Graduate School in 1994.
Wolff served as a civil affairs team leader, company operations officer, delta company commander and battalion executive officer, before serving on the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Enduring Iraqi Freedom.
He deployed to Iraq as chief of operations for the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance Southern Region and served as chief of civil administration for the Coalition Provisional Authority South-Central Region.
Wolff returned to Fort Bragg to command the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion from June 2004 to June 2005, followed by becoming the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade’s deputy commanding officer and commanding the brigade from June 2010 to June 2012.
He also had assignments with the U.S. Special Operations Command with duty as the operations officer in the Office of Military Affairs, U.S. Agency for International Development.
Wolff was commandant for the Civil Affairs Regiment in 2014 and was the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s chief of staff for strategy and plans the same year.
He also served as a senior advisor for the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service from February 2016 to March 2017.
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.Com or 910-486-3528.
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