Shelley, Joseph, CSM

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.

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.