Kentuckians at War

The adjustment to military life was relatively easy for Rebecca Stinsky.  Her mother, stepfather, and siblings all wore service uniforms.  Their experience encouraged her to join Navy junior ROTC in high school.  After graduation it was a natural progression to the Marines.  As an aviation mechanic Stinsky wanted to work on the ‘biggest, baddest helicopters the Corps had to offer.”  But Stinsky found out maintaining a military helicopter and filling in as a door gunner were two very different jobs.

On Monday, 21 soldiers and their spouses became citizens of the United States in a naturalization ceremony held at the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) headquarters at Fort Campbell. Applicants came from a wide variety of countries, including Cuba, Somalia, Kenya, Cameroon, Haiti, Argentina, Russia, Canada, Germany, Egypt, Nigeria and The Philippines.

War stories as told by 9 student-veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are broadcast Friday on 88.9 WEKU. “11-11-11, A Veterans Day Special” offers stories told by veterans who now attend Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky.

Jonathan Herst was the stereotypical big man on campus. He went to college on an athletic scholarship, and admits to spending a lot of time partying and chasing girls. But after getting his undergraduate degree in 2001, Herst felt something was missing in his life. He decided to do something, as he puts it, “for a bigger cause.” So he joined the Army and was eventually sent to Iraq. By 2005, Herst had survived many dangerous patrols without a scratch. But as his squad neared the end of one mission in 2005, Herst felt something bad was going to happen.

FRANKFORT – Gov. Steve Beshear Wednesday recognized the sacrifice of a Fort Campbell soldier who died while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. According to the Department of Defense, Sgt. James M. Darrough, 38, of Austin, Texas, died Oct. 29, in Kabul province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. He was assigned to 101st Finance Company, 101st Special Troops Battalion, 101st Sustainment Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell.

A Kentucky National Guard Unit is back home after three months on duty in Iraq. Members of the 198th Military Police Battalion were welcomed back in a Wednesday morning ceremony at the Beuchel Army National Guard Armory in Louisville.

Railey Bostick ran as fast as her little legs would carry her when she spotted her father outside her school Tuesday afternoon. “Daddy!” the 3-year-old cried as she jumped into Pfc. Chase Bostwick’s awaiting arms. “I was so worried about you, Daddy,” the little girl said as she patted the back of his head underneath his Army cap. Chase told her he was worried about her, too, as he hugged her tighter. Aside from a brief emergency leave, Chase has not seen his daughter in about a year. He just returned from military duty in Afghanistan last month.

Sgt. Dakota Meyer, the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor in nearly 40 years, has gotten used to the attention brought by his military honors. Instead of setting up interviews with different media outlets after he was named an honorary Kentucky State Police trooper at KSP headquarters Monday, the 23-year-old veteran asked to field reporters’ questions en masse from a podium. He is credited with saving the lives of 13 U.S. soldiers and 23 Afghan soldiers under heavy insurgent fire in northeastern Afghanistan’s Ganjgal valley in 2009.

Marines are trained to fight proficiently with deadly weapons.  But when an unarmed mob in Iraq turned violent, such weapons were literally overkill.  Kentuckian Noah Melgar found himself in just such a situation.   As a military policeman with the Marines, Melgar had to fight hand-to-hand.

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., voted to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the the nation’s first African-American members of the United States Marine Corps, which includes six Louisville residents. The Montford Point Marines broke the color line in 1941, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order desegregating the Marine Corps, which was the last branch of the military to do so. At the time, more than 19,000 black marines trained at Camp Montford Point in Jacksonville, North Carolina between 1942 and 1949.

FRANKFORT — A renovated Kentucky Military History Museum at the State Arsenal will reopen to the public with a ceremony at 2 p.m. EST on Veterans Day, Friday, Nov. 11. The museum at 125 East Main St. in downtown Frankfort is operated by the Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Department of Military Affairs.

52 year-old Rocco Pepe has had numerous military deployments. Too many campaigns, he says, to name.  His 20 year career with the Marines began in 1976, followed by several years in the Air National Guard.  Today Pepe’s an officer with the Georgetown/ Scott County Emergency Management Agency.  He boasts about seeing 35 percent of the world without paying a penny for transportation.  The veteran grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, in sight of the New York City skyline. Despite the cosmopolitan surroundings and his military travels, the veteran is not immune to culture shock, abroad, and in the U-S…

Georgetown has been selected for a multimillion-dollar National Veterans Memorial Museum to be located on a 2,000-acre site to be secured sometime in the next year. "If you draw a 500-mile circle around Georgetown, you have a majority of the (nation's) population inside," said Todd Strecker, a Lexington man who's heading the effort to build the museum.

Gov. Steve Beshear Wednesday recognized the sacrifice of a Fort Knox soldier who died while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.  According to the Department of Defense, Spc. Michael D. Elm, 25, of Phoenix, Ariz., died Oct. 14 in Khowst, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Knox.

As Veteran's Day 2011 draws near, power cooperatives across Kentucky have joined together to honor those who fought in World War II. On Saturday, Oct. 22, 35 World War II veterans from Kentucky will travel to Washington, D.C. to visit the memorial created in 2004 to honor their service.

Some casualties of war are the minds of soldiers thrown into combat. Travis Martin is such a case. As an 18 year-old, the Somerset, Kentucky native found himself driving heavy trucks in Iraq. The target of several ambushes, the soldier suffered head and shoulder wounds when his vehicle ran over a roadside bomb.  For two years his hands shook uncontrollably, and his personality changed for the worse. He was not diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, but insists he’s a victim of P-T-S-D. After two tours of duty, Martin earned a master’s degree in English literature at Eastern Kentucky University.  In the latest in our series on student veterans, Martin talks about coping with severe anxiety…

An exhibit opening this weekend at the Frazier History Museum focuses on how the Civil War fractured many families and communities in Kentucky.

It’s called “My Brother, My Enemy.”Curator of Collections Kelly Williams Wilkerson says Kentucky’s position as a so-called “border state” during the war caused some deep political and personal rifts.

Members of the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command are not known as a combat unit, but the group recognizes the need for readiness when it enters a war zone early next year. Part of the process to prepare bodies and minds for the upcoming deployment was unleashed in September on a padded wrestling mat in a gymnasium on Fort Knox. The exercise was part of combatives training, a multi-dimensional course in hand-to-hand combat completed in stages.

Fighting a war often immerses a soldier in a foreign environment and culture. That was the case for Phil McKenzie, the latest in a long line of McKenzies who served in the military.  As a 20 year-old Bradley tank driver, the eastern Kentucky native and Tennessee National Guard member, recalls his first impressions of Iraq, its first real election after the American invasion, and the bomb that wasn’t…