I Currently work as an Project manager working in Southern Europe and SWA I live just out side of Naples, Italy.
Damn we have good Soldiers, this News Paper Article is from 2006 and?is on one of my Heros SSG Jennifer Fulkerson.
Take your time now and add her to your Brothers list.
The 18th MP Bde brought her to Germany to be our guest?speaker?to mark Women's Equality Day. The Article makes the four days seem back to back, when they really were spread thru the entire year. Doesn't change a thing.
I also want to thank MSG Chris Warner for making this story happen. Heck add her to your Brothers list also.
The Article:
Strong men and brave women cried equally Friday during a military celebration of women's struggles for equal rights that turned into a remembrance of the sacrifice of scores of American women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Excuse me just a little bit, said Command Sgt. Maj. Joseph Shelley, choking up at the podium after watching a somber slide show of the nearly 60 women most of them military, enlisted and young killed far from home in roadside bombings, suicide bombings and helicopter crashes in the past few years.
Shelley, wearing Class As and a buzz cut, a former command sergeant major for the 18th Military Police Brigade, was determined to regain his composure to introduce the guest speaker he'd brought to Mannheim to mark Women's Equality Day. The day was ordained in 1971 to mark the date in 1920 that the 19th Amendment provided American women voting rights.
The speaker was Staff Sgt. Jennifer Fulkerson, a former math teacher and now a Kentucky National Guard recruiter. Among a batch of honors from her year in Iraq as an MP, Fulkerson earned a Purple Heart, the Army Commendation Medal with Valor and twice a Bronze Star Medal.
It's pretty easy to show valor when you go to war and everything goes well, Shelley said at the event at the Top Hat Club at Benjamin Franklin Village. But I'm going to talk about four days that really sucked.
In those four days, Shelley said, Fulkerson and her squad of 10 MPs were hit repeatedly, day after day, with roadside bomb after roadside bomb. In one instance, two of her soldiers were wounded and one was killed.
Fulkerson did what sergeants always do, Shelley said, choking up again, and she takes the squad out again.
By the end of those four days, Shelley said, two soldiers were dead and six wounded, two of them critically from a squad of 10 but Fulkerson never failed in her duties to save the wounded, see to her troops and rally them to go out again.
Fulkerson, 33, took the podium decorated with a World War II-era Rosie the Riveter poster and started to talk about women's rights, in the U.S. and in Arab cultures such as that in Iraq. She reminded the audience that the first American woman to serve in combat did so during the Revolutionary War when her husband was killed and she had to take over his cannon but that women were not authorized to serve in the U.S. military until 1948 and are still officially barred from direct combat positions in modern wars in which combat comes to them equally.
She said that although her mission in Iraq was to try to keep the roads safe, she and her soldiers tried to also do one good deed each day for the needy Iraqis they saw.
But it wasn't easy after what they went through, she said.
It made it hard for us to see the bigger picture, she said, starting to cry as she remembered her soldiers deaths. We look back and have to understand that they gave their lives for a greater cause.
The event, put on by the 18th MP Brigade, had its lighter moments outside the club. There were two German police officers both women mounted on their friendly horses, both males.
We have only boys, said officer Anja Mersmann, explaining that mares tend to be stubborn.
The 529th MP Company was demonstrating the skills of its dogs, using female MPs and dogs of both sexes.
We call it controlled aggression, said Staff Sgt. Christopher Gronli as one of the dogs, Sabor, attacked Sgt. Tracy Ast on command. We let guys get bit, we let women get bit, he said. We don't care.
Other Comments:
My Last Army E-mail 19 Jul 06
To Everyone
This will be my last official E-Mail as the Command Sergeant Major of the 18th Military Police Brigade. I pass the reins of this great Brigade to CSM XXXXXXXX on Friday afternoon, 21 Jul 06 in conjunction with Col XXXXXX's change of command ceremony. I would like to say I look forward to this day but, to be honest it feels like I am quitting. When I see the look on my wife's face every time we talk about retiring from this great career I know time is right. I just feel sorry for the local recruiter's office that I move next to. I did attend my first ACAP briefing yesterday and heck I didn't look bad in civilian clothing. Oh by the way they talked to us about net working so if any of you know of any job openings or opportunities please send them my way. Please switch my e-mail address and use ######## and for any official 18th MP Bde issues direct them to CSM XXXXXX whose e-mail address is CCd above. Current plan is I am going to take some well deserved leave, ACAP and then go on terminal leave 1 Nov 06, spend Christmas in Massachusetts and go on official retirement role 1 Apr 07. PS means I need a job lead ASAP.
To all the Warriors I served with past and present I want to thank you all for every thing you have done and to let you know it was a complete blast. If you ever need advice, an opinion, or someone to drink a beer with drop me a line. To the 7 Solders I lost during OIF 1 and the 11 Soldiers from OIF III and to their families, I want you to know that I will not let the world forget that you gave the ultimate sacrifice fighting this global war on terrorism. History will tell the truth but, as for right now we can fight these individuals in Iraq, Afghanistan or we can fight them in Europe and America. The choice where is ours but, they will make us fight them.
To all of the great Soldiers who fought for our freedom during WW I, WW II, Korea and Vietnam thank you for setting the standard so high for today's Soldiers. I look back on what you men accomplished and it just amazes me to think that you did the same thing as today's warriors but, with out KBR, 31 flavors and air conditioned trailers. To my friends who fought during Vietnam you will always be my heroes.
Closing this out I would like to give you a thought.
Several months ago I was attending a memorial service for one of our fallen warriors in Iraq.? I was listening to the Chaplain talk about how revenge belongs to God and as I sat there and listened I could not help, stop, and think to myself that while this may be true, sometimes even God needs a helping hand and that is why he made Soldiers.
The 504th Military Police Battalion, the “Dragon Fighters,” was first constituted on 29 July 1921 in the Organized Reserves as the 304th Military Police Battalion. It was organized in April 1922 in Tennessee. The unit was inactivated on 1 January 1938 in Tennessee and concurrently withdrawn from the Organized Reserves and lotted the to the Regular Army. On 1 June 1940, the unit was re-designated as the 504th Military Police Battalion. The unit was then activated at Fort Sam Houston, Texas on 15 May 1942, the day the Battalion subsequently celebrated as its birthday. Company D, 504th Military Police Battalion was subsequently inactivated on 20 June 1942 at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
The 504th Miltary Police Battalion had no sooner formed when it began training for its first major challenge. For two years, the Battalion prepared for its baptism by fire. In February 1943, the 504th Military Police Battalion was alterted for deployment to Europe, and on 18 March 1943, landed on the beaches of North Africa as part of the first Allied force of World War II to fight against Rommel’s Africa Korps.
As the battle widened, the Battalion spread over some 400,000 square miles of desert. As the Africa Korp gradually fell against the combined American-British advance, the 504th Military Police Battalion assumed control of huge numbers of German prisoners. However, the Battalion’s attention was quickly turned to the north as the Allied force prepared for their first landing on the European continent to strike against the “soft underbelly” of the Third Reich.
On 10 July 1943, elements of the 504th joined 800,000 Allied soldiers as part of Operation “Avalanche,” the Allied landing at Salerno. Soldiers of the Battalion had now been combat tested in nearly every type of operation for which the military police were then trained. Later actions of the 504th Military Police Battalion during World War II included the August 1944 landing in Southern France to support the earlier D-Day invasion of Normandy and its movement across 500 miles in Europe in one month as part of the Seventh Army.
Following the Allied victory over the European Axis powers, the Battalion was assigned to the Third Army Headquarters in Munich, Germany. In 26 months of fighting, the 504th Military Police Battalion had emerged from World War II as the most decorated military police battalion of the conflict by earning 9 battle stars and 4 bronze arrowheads for amphibious landings. After assisting the Allied occupation, the Battalion was inactivated on 20 January 1947 in Germany.
On 2 October 1950, the 504th Military Police Battalion was reactivated at Camp Gordon, Georgia and for the next 12 years, remained a combat ready military police force that was called many times to deploy throughout the world.
In October 1962, the Battalion was re-stationed to Fort Lewis, Washington. Its time at Fort Lewis was soon to be interrupted by the Nation’s invovement in Vietnam. In August 1965, the Battalion landed in Qui Nhon, Republic of Vietnam, and over the next 7 years, soldiers of the 504th Military Police Battalion engaged in the seemingly endless struggle against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. The Battalion was involved in countless operations during this period carrying it from one end of Vietnam to the other, until its redeployment to the Presidio of San Francisco, California, in 1972.
Upon its return from Vietnam, Companies A, B, and C were inactivated on 31 July 1972, at the Presidio of San Francisco, California. The Battalion’s Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment was re-stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington in June 1984. On 22 February 1988, the Battalion was authorized the special distinctive designation “Dragon Fighters.”
The 504th Military Police Battalion’s contributions included pre-planning phases of Operation Just Cause, with the Battalion deployed to Panama from August 1989 through December 1989. Also, the Battalion was responsible for the train-up, readiness, and deployment of 2 reserve companies supporting Operation Desert Storm. Additionally, the Battalion deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from November 1991 to February 1992, in support of Joint Task Force Guantanamo. As the first Army unit in Cuba, the Battalion quickly establised security and provided outstanding humanitarian relief efforts to all Haitian migrants as part of Operation Safe Harbor.
By the 1990s, the 504th Military Police Battalion was the most decorated military police battalion on active duty. The 504th Military Police Battalion was, at the time, a combat military police battalion with a Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment and 3 military police companies: the 66th Military Police Company, the 170th Military Police Company, and the 571st Military Police Company. The 504th also fulfilled the Law and Order mission for Fort Lewis and Yakima Training Center.
on 4 November 2001, Task Force 716th Military Police from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, gave way to Task Force 504th Military Police out of Fort Lewis, Washington, during a Task Force Falcon Military Police transfer of authority ceremony in Kosovo. Each task force was comprised of both active and reserve component elements, so having a year to prepare for this allowed them to bring all the units together as a team and train on a number of occasions. The Task Force 504th Military Police included the 66th Military Police Company, Fort Lewis, Washington; the 209th Military Police Company, Fort Polk, Louisiana; the 2175th Military Police Company of the Missouri National Guard; and Detachment 6, 391st Military Police Battalion, Columbus, Ohio, part of the US Army Reserves. The military police trained to do peacetime, wartime, and all types of contingency operations. The military police mission was exactly suited for what happened in Kosovo, to include law enforcement operations, maneuverability support operations, keeping the lines of communication on the roads open, doing checkpoints, cordon and searches, and meeting with the local people.
In late 2004, the 1st Military Police Brigade (Provisional) at Fort Lewis, Washington was inactivated and reflagged as the 42nd Military Police Brigade. The 504th Military Police Battalion remained assigned to this unit and subsequently gained the 54th Military Police Company.
