Veteran Salute: Taking the unpaved road in Iraq
COUNCIL GROVE (KSNT) - Over her 23 years of service, National Guard Truck Master Rebecca Elias served across Germany, Iraq and even locally in Council Grove.
Looking ahead at life post high school, Elias hear the call to duty loud and clear at age 17.
“I had other plans," Elias said, "but for some reason the military just kept gnawing at me. My great grandfather, my grandfather, my uncle were all in the military, and it just resonated.”
Serving in Germany, Elias worked in the chaotic and fast paced world of telecommunications.
“That has a different meaning then, than it does now," She said. "We worked in a fixed sight communications center. Message trafficking and things like that. We did deal with a lot of different units, a lot of different contractors, it was just very interesting being able to see but not see what was coming through.”
Her next deployment took a very different route, trading communications work for the unpaved road.
“We were a fuel hauler, bolt tanks that we would haul," Elias said. "We ended up getting called to desert storm. So we went up over there hauling fuel to the front lines, fueling tanks sometimes helicopters and whatnot. It’s really rewarding knowing that you are taking care of supplies, you’re driving things where they need them. It’s really cool to be in on the logistic side of the house.”
Moving forward with that Truck Master role meant a lot to the sergeant.
“The saying is nothing happens til something moves," She said, "and we were the movers. You can’t get anywhere without gas. We sometimes hauled ammunition, we hauled food, we hauled water during Desert Storm. Nothing was going to happen unless we got there on time.”
After Desert Storm, Elias found herself deployed once again for Operation Iraqi Freedom. An unlikely string of events led her and her husband Tony overseas at the same time, but not in the same squad.
“We flipped units," Elias said. "I was with the head company, and he was with the palletized loading system company. My unit needed a First Sgt., his unit needed a Truck Master. So they flipped us, I wasn’t very happy about it but they did it anyway, and we went back overseas. We moved forward up into Iraq, just north of Baghdad. Our transportation company was phenomenal. Our main area of focus was the Sunni Triangle, which was one of the worst because that’s where a lot of things happened.”
We'll hear more about 1st Sgt. Tony Elias and how the couple met through the Council Grove Armory, in next week's Veteran Salute.