Salute to Veterans 2015

November 8, 2015

H H H H H

SALUTE TO

VETERANS

2 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2015 & cdispatch.com SALUTE TO VETERANS SALUTE TO VETERANS & cdispatch.com SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2015 3



Bradford Freeman By Andrew Hazzard | [email protected]

When his war ended, Bradford Freeman came home and went to work.

He returned to Lowndes County in Dec. 1945 after packing his own parachute five times, jumping out of five planes and fighting in the four most significant battles of the Allied Campaign in Europe. He helped secure Utah Beach on D-Day, earned a citation for a daring rescue mission in Eindhoven, Netherlands, helped hold Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge and occupied the portion of Germany known as Hitler’s Nest.

By Jan. 1946, he was working.Freeman was married to Willie Lou

Freeman, had two daughters and drove a U.S. Mail route from Caledonia up through Monroe County for 32 years.

Freeman was a private-first class in Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. The unit became among the most famed in U.S. military history when Stephen Ambrose immortalized them in his 1993 book, “Band of Brothers.” A 2001 HBO mini-series by the same name, co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, added to their fame.

The men of the unit stayed close, meeting

as often as they could wherever they could in Nevada, Colorado, New Orleans, Georgia and London. Now, as many have died, Freeman receives phone calls from their children.

From his personal archives, among medals including the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, lie photos of the men he calls brothers. There aren’t many left today.

“It was a real good group of boys and they thought the world of each other,” Freeman says fondly. “It wasn’t ‘I,’ it was ‘We.’”

Freeman gets fan mail on a regular basis, usually just folks thanking him for his service and asking for a signature. He tries to respond to everybody.

At 91, Freeman is still active in body and mind. He has a firm handshake and keeps a pair of work gloves in his back pocket. Not long ago, as a beautiful fall afternoon passed at the 100 Caledonia acres he has lived on for 60 years, some ladies stopped by to thank him for the tomatoes he grew and gave to them.

One daughter, Beverly Bowles, lives down the street. His other daughter, Becky Clardy, lives close by, too.

Chris Taylor By Carl Smith | [email protected]

Thirty years, nine months and a handful of days — Oktibbeha County NAACP Chairman Chris Taylor can quickly recall how long he served in the Army.

Taylor, a former sergeant major who served in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, enlisted in 1975, following in the footsteps of his father and uncles.

Like his predecessors, Taylor joined in search of a better life. Out of his six siblings, five others joined a branch of the U.S. armed forces, including his brother Carl, who also served in Iraq.

Taylor said he clearly remembers the management duties he faced in Bosnia and Kosovo during peacekeeping missions from 1997-1998 and 2000-2001, respectively, but it was his 2004-2005 tour in Afghanistan that provided the most danger.

In addition to serving in an active warzone, Taylor said his unit drove around their sector in unarmored trucks for the first six months of the deployment.

“One didn’t even have doors. We felt completely naked,” the 60-year-old says.

Taylor was part of a group assigned to support local warlords opposing the Taliban. The warlords, he says, were the true rulers of Afghanistan.

Live fire experiences became commonplace as his convoy went on patrols.

“Out near Herat, we’d be driving down the road and start taking fire from the Taliban up in the hills. The only thing we could do is take cover, return fire and call for backup,” he says. “I never saw someone drop (when returning fire). We called in air support all the time.

“The worst part about it was the uncertainty you have every day,” Taylor adds. “You didn’t know if you’d get shot at or something worse. No matter what corner you went around or in what city, the danger was always there.”

His best experience in Afghanistan? The publicity he and his fellow soldiers received when Geraldo Rivera reported on his unit.

Deveon Sudduth By Isabelle Altman | [email protected]

Less than two weeks after arriving in Iraq in Feb. 2006, Lt. Col. Deveon Rawls Sudduth had to speak at the memorial service for Army Specialist Benjamin Schuster, who was killed by an improvised explosive device.

Sudduth and Schuster had arrived in Iraq together. Sudduth was the only person who knew him well enough to speak. The morning of Schuster’s memorial, Sudduth

got up, went to work, spoke at the memorial, went back to work, spoke at the memorial for the second shift and went home.

“You have to wait until you get home to process all that,” Sudduth says. “Because I knew if I ever cried that I wouldn’t be able to stop crying. So you just hold it all in until you get home and then you deal with it.”

It was the first of two deployments to Iraq that Sudduth would experience between 2004 and 2013, only three years of which she spent in Steens, where she and her husband raise horses. Originally from Byram, Sudduth joined the National Guard in 1979, at the same time as her older sister, because they had never been apart. Sudduth grew to love the military lifestyle — the structure and the feeling that she was a part of something bigger than herself.

Now 53, Sudduth credits her husband, Jimmie, for supporting her and dealing with her “craziness” following her first deployment to Iraq. When she arrived home, he surprised her by building her a camp house in their backyard where she could go to “chill out.”

Sudduth also has two daughters — one a teacher in Washington, D.C., the other a college student in Madison.

During her second deployment to Iraq, from 2008 to 2009, she worked for several Iraqi ministries, helping develop curriculums to train the rapidly improving Iraqi military. Not only did she make friends in Iraq, she came to like the culture — especially the food.

Freeman

Sudduth

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got up, went to work, spoke at the memorial, went back to work, spoke at the memorial for the second shift and went home.

“You have to wait until you get home to process all that,” Sudduth says. “Because I knew if I ever cried that I wouldn’t be able to stop crying. So you just hold it all in until you get home and then you deal with it.”

It was the first of two deployments to Iraq that Sudduth would experience between 2004 and 2013, only three years of which she spent in Steens, where she and her husband raise horses. Originally from Byram, Sudduth joined the National Guard in 1979, at the same time as her older sister, because they had never been apart. Sudduth grew to love the military lifestyle — the structure and the feeling that she was a part of something bigger than herself.

Now 53, Sudduth credits her husband, Jimmie, for supporting her and dealing with her “craziness” following her first deployment to Iraq. When she arrived home, he surprised her by building her a camp house in their backyard where she could go to “chill out.”

Sudduth also has two daughters — one a teacher in Washington, D.C., the other a college student in Madison.

During her second deployment to Iraq, from 2008 to 2009, she worked for several Iraqi ministries, helping develop curriculums to train the rapidly improving Iraqi military. Not only did she make friends in Iraq, she came to like the culture — especially the food.


Gino Conti By Slim Smith | [email protected]

It’s been more than 70 years since the end of World War II, so it’s natural that Gino Conti would have forgotten much of that experience.

But it is not merely the ravages of time that has erased much of those memories. For the colorful Conti, now 95, it was also a matter of choice.

“It’s just me, but I wanted to forget the whole damn thing!” he says, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Conti was born in Palermo, Italy, on July 21, 1920.

“I left Sicily when I was 3 months and 3 days old,” he says. “At least, that’s what they told me. How could I know that?”

After being processed at Ellis Island, the family moved to Brooklyn. He tells stories of famed gangster John Dillinger, who would sometimes go through the neighborhood making sure everybody had a loaf of bread during the darkest days of the Depression.

In 1940, Conti enlisted in the Army Air Corps was trained in aircraft maintenance. When the war broke out, he was sent to Naples, Italy, and spent the war throughout Europe helping maintain aircrafts of all sizes and functions.

At the end of the war, he was stationed in Africa before returning stateside.

“I spent most of my career with the Army

Air Corps (which became the U.S. Air Force in 1947) in the states,” Conti says.

He came to Columbus Air Force Base in the 1950s and returned to Columbus in 1970 when he retired with the rank of master sergeant after 30 years of service.

He and his wife, Ila, were married 74 years before she passed away a year ago. Their only child, Daryl, served in Vietnam. He, too, is deceased.

Conti, who has lived in Columbus for 45 years, now lives in an assisted living facility at Plantation Point.

He remains a gregarious, cheerful man.His one complaint: “There is nowhere

around here where you can get a good Italian meal.”

James Hunt By Isabelle Altman | [email protected]

On Laurel native James Hunt’s 19th birthday — Dec. 16, 1944 — German forces during World War II began an offensive through the thick, covered Forest of Ardennes in Belgium. There, in the historic Battle of the Bulge, they clashed with U.S. forces, including Hunt, who was a replacement infantryman in the 18th Infantry, 1st Division of K Company.

“The coldest winter ever,” says Hunt, who lives in Columbus today. “I mean, snow up to the gazoo.”

The ground was frozen, making it impossible to break the ground to dig foxholes. The soldiers had to light small sticks of dynamite just to break the crust of the ground to even begin to dig, Hunt remembers.

“And the bad thing about it was once you got the foxhole dug, when the offensive started moving forward, you left the nice warm foxhole and went out to do it over again,” he says.

Hunt had been drafted in 1943. He was discharged for medical reasons before the war was over. After returning to Mississippi, he finished his education and taught at Mississippi University for Women for 30 years. He has helped create programs both at the university and in the community to benefit Columbus’ handicapped community.

Years later, he would return to Belgium with his first wife to visit his daughter, Elizabeth Neil, who works for the State

Department. The three of them visited the Henri-Chapelle Cemetery where World War II soldiers, many of them from Hunt’s division, are buried.

“I couldn’t find very many that were older than 23 years of age,” Hunt says. “And you think, ‘These people never knew their families past this particular age. They never knew about the changing technology, they never knew the events that happened in the world.’ They were just, I guess you’d say, sacrificed. They gave their lives, I guess that’s a better way to put it.”

Jeff Donald By Alex Holloway | [email protected]

Jeff Donald traveled the world during his 30-year military career.

For Donald, a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army, service has been a lifelong dream. He began his college education at Mississippi State University, but had wanted to go to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point ever since he was a child.

“My congressman, John Bell Williams, told me that if I went to Mississippi State and took calculus and freshman English and passed, I could go to West Point,” Donald says. “That’s what I’d wanted to do. I had been writing my congressman and senator since I was a freshman and I’d wanted to go to West Point since I was in

the fourth grade.”Donald went to West Point and

graduated as a second lieutenant in 1972. He was commissioned as an infantry officer. During his career, he went to Germany, Korea, Belgium and Ireland.

“As an infantry officer, you prepare your platoon, your company, your battalion for combat,” he says. “You lead them.”

He served as an attaché in Belgium and in Ireland. During those assignments, he worked closely with the ambassador and local governments and was also involved in maintaining defense intelligence.

Donald, 66, was born in Laurel. He lives in Starkville now, and has a wife, Marilyn Leah Donald, and two sons, Patrick and Ryan.

Looking back, he points to his father, who served with the Navy in World War II, as an inspiration to join the military.

“Long story short, he would tell stories and I would go with him when he and his

friends would talk about the war and tell war stories,” Donald says. “I said I wanted to do it. He told me if I studied really hard, I could go to Annapolis to be a naval officer.

“I started off wanting to do that, but in the fourth grade I decided I didn’t want to do that — I wanted to be in the Army,” he continues. “If a ship sinks in the ocean, there’s no dry land to get on. Put me on dry land.”

Conti

Donald

Hunt


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the fourth grade.”Donald went to West Point and

graduated as a second lieutenant in 1972. He was commissioned as an infantry officer. During his career, he went to Germany, Korea, Belgium and Ireland.

“As an infantry officer, you prepare your platoon, your company, your battalion for combat,” he says. “You lead them.”

He served as an attaché in Belgium and in Ireland. During those assignments, he worked closely with the ambassador and local governments and was also involved in maintaining defense intelligence.

Donald, 66, was born in Laurel. He lives in Starkville now, and has a wife, Marilyn Leah Donald, and two sons, Patrick and Ryan.

Looking back, he points to his father, who served with the Navy in World War II, as an inspiration to join the military.

“Long story short, he would tell stories and I would go with him when he and his

friends would talk about the war and tell war stories,” Donald says. “I said I wanted to do it. He told me if I studied really hard, I could go to Annapolis to be a naval officer.

“I started off wanting to do that, but in the fourth grade I decided I didn’t want to do that — I wanted to be in the Army,” he continues. “If a ship sinks in the ocean, there’s no dry land to get on. Put me on dry land.”


Jesse Cobb By Isabelle Altman | [email protected]

At 93, Jesse Cobb says he can’t remember much anymore, but he can still tell you that he was a private in the Fifth Army in the 1943 Allied invasion of Italy.

He can also tell you all the different places he trained and was deployed in the correct order and can give you the date that he enlisted in the U.S. Army — Sept. 9, 1941 — and the day he got back to his hometown of Columbus — Nov. 5, 1944.

A few months after Cobb enlisted, Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor, pushing the U.S. into World War II. Cobb was part of an African American outfit in the Army.

“Them Germans would just rain shells down on the beach,” Cobb says. “I never did think I’d see back here again.”

Cobb served as 242nd quartermaster in Italy, Sicily and North Africa. Though his outfit never fought in a battle, they stayed at the front line to back up the rest of the Fifth Army and always had their rifles loaded and ready to use if necessary.

Because the Germans had recently invaded Italy, the Fifth Army primarily fought them. In fact, Cobb remembers the local Italians as being friendly —

eventually. For the first few days the Americans were there, the locals hid their children whenever they saw Cobb or other men from his unit because the Germans had told them black soldiers would eat their children.

After the war, Cobb lived in Columbus for a few years before moving to Wisconsin to take a manufacturing job. There he met his wife, Nancy Cobb, who died in 1999. She and Cobb had been married 51 years. Cobb’s stepson, Sidney Lockett, still lives in Wisconsin, and the two keep in touch. Now Cobb is back in Columbus, retired and still reminiscing about Italy and the men in his unit.

John Fraiser By Alex Holloway | [email protected]

John Fraiser is one of a lucky few.The 90-year-old veteran flew as a turret

gunner atop B-24 Liberators in raids over southern Germany as part of the 15th Air Force’s 455th Bomber Group.

Fraiser flew on missions over Vienna, Munich, Regensburg, Linz, Prague and other cities that hit what he calls the underbelly of the Nazi war machine.

“Combat air crewmen of the air forces in World War II suffered the highest rate of casualties of any entity or any group

in World War II,” he says. “That would include all the Marines. That’s seldom published.

“The real early ones that went over there — most of them didn’t come back,” Fraiser adds. “While I was over there, we lost about 50-percent of our aircrew in the 15th and 8th, and they were the two main air forces.”

Fraiser says he counts himself fortunate to have flown in the turret atop the Liberators — he says gunners in turrets beneath the planes were far more vulnerable.

Fraiser joined the military as a 17-year-old in 1943.

“At that time, I knew that I wanted to go into service. I’d always wanted to fly,” he says. “I had never flown before, but I wanted to fly. When I went in, they gave us a test and I passed the test to be a navigator, but they didn’t have any navigation schools with spots open. I wanted to go on, and they did have gunnery schools open, so I opted out and went on to the gunnery school.”

He left the service in 1945 as a staff sergeant, a few months after the end of the war.

Fraiser grew up in Sunnyside and now lives in Starkville with his wife, Jennie. He has a son, John J. Fraiser III, a daughter Martha Fraiser Bryant and a stepdaughter, Emily Odam.

Joseph Johnson By Alex Holloway | [email protected]

Joseph Johnson grew up in the small town of Goodway in Monroe County, Alabama.

Now, the 90-year-old U.S. Army veteran lives in Columbus with a career that spanned 42 years of service in the military and civil service behind him. Johnson served with the 3rd Army 551st AAA Battalion. He was a gunner on a 40-millimeter anti-aircraft gun. In the civil service, Johnson worked with the 14th Flying Training Wing and spent 15 years as an air traffic management officer at Columbus Air Force Base.

Johnson enlisted in 1943 at 16 years of age. His tour took him into the heart of the European theater during World War II, from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge.

“I was in the fifth wave to hit the beach,” Johnson says. “The first, second and third got knocked out. Half of the fourth wave got knocked out. Then they called for the fifth. I don’t know how we survived that, brother. It was a miracle.”

Johnson reached the rank of private first class during his military service and GS-12 in the civil service. He earned four Bronze Stars and a French Legion medal.

During his service, Johnson personally knew Gen. George S. Patton who, to hear Johnson tell it, was the greatest general to ever walk the Earth.

“If it wasn’t for him, we’d be speaking German right now,” Johnson says. “I tell you what, he was hard on us, but he made good soldiers out of us.”

Johnson says he was often “scared to death” during the war, but would do it again, if he had to.

Johnson has two daughters, Gwen Lollar and Joan Averett, and a son, Danny Johnson.

Cobb

Johnson

Fraiser


Thank You.

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“I was in the fifth wave to hit the beach,” Johnson says. “The first, second and third got knocked out. Half of the fourth wave got knocked out. Then they called for the fifth. I don’t know how we survived that, brother. It was a miracle.”

Johnson reached the rank of private first class during his military service and GS-12 in the civil service. He earned four Bronze Stars and a French Legion medal.

During his service, Johnson personally knew Gen. George S. Patton who, to hear Johnson tell it, was the greatest general to ever walk the Earth.

“If it wasn’t for him, we’d be speaking German right now,” Johnson says. “I tell you what, he was hard on us, but he made good soldiers out of us.”

Johnson says he was often “scared to death” during the war, but would do it again, if he had to.

Johnson has two daughters, Gwen Lollar and Joan Averett, and a son, Danny Johnson.


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Leondre Rice By Carl Smith | [email protected]

Ten years ago, Leondre Rice ducked through the gunner’s hole in his Humvee to avoid gunfire as his convoy came under attack in Iraq.

He was warning his commander of the attack as an improvised explosive device rocked his vehicle, severely injuring him and others.

His next conscious memory came weeks later as he recovered stateside.

“I stood back up, and that’s the last thing I remember. I woke up back in the U.S” Rice says. “They said I was (treated) in Germany for six days. I just don’t want (war injuries) to happen to anyone else.”

He lost his eyesight that day, along with two knuckles and a bone in his arm. The E-4 specialist’s skull was also fractured, and he was badly burned.

Rice, now 36, is a Columbus native who joined the Marines straight out of high school in 1998 and transitioned to the Mississippi National Guard five years later.

Both branches took him to armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he served in the same National Guard battery: 2nd Battalion, 114th Field

Artillery Regiment.Serving in an active warzone, he

says, brought with it the obvious perils. Tensions ran higher that April day Rice was wounded, as insurgents armed with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and car bombs attacked American forces at Abu Ghraib prison.

“We were supposed to get some equipment installed on our Humvees. I thought we were going to get attacked that day,” he says while describing how his convoy snaked through crowded, hostile streets.

In addition to the scars left by the attack, Rice says he’ll always carry with him the camaraderie he experienced with fellow soldiers.

“It’s all about the family — each other — over there,” he says. “I feel like I was closer with those guys than most people. We were as close as you can be without being actual blood family.”

Michael Hunter By Carl Smith | [email protected]

What started as a way to fund his higher education slowly turned into a continuous commitment for Michael Hunter.

A Starkville resident, Hunter enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1987 and has remained with the armed services in one way or another ever since.

Now, at 48, he works with cadets in Mississippi State University’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program.

His service, however, has taken him far from Macon, his hometown.

Hunter’s deployments include a 2001 stint in Bosnia — one that occurred about the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and two separate tours of duty in Iraq.

As an artillery fire support officer in a peacekeeping role, Hunter primarily worked joint military commission roles in Bosnia, where he was responsible for monitoring training, weapons supplies and other accountability marks between the Bosnian and Serbian forces.

Four years later, his outfit was deployed to Iraq’s active warzone.

“We were there to slug it out (with the enemy). The worst of it was losing fellow soldiers — the ones who didn’t make it home,” he says.

Hunter, a lieutenant colonel, was sent back to Iraq in 2009. He and his fellow soldiers were sent to shore up the country’s stability ahead of an expected U.S. transition out of the region.

The two tours of duty, he says, were “night-and-day” experiences.

“We did convoy operations — securing them to resupply all the other soldiers there,” Hunter says. “The best part of the tour was building upon successes. One of my jobs over there was as a police liaison, where I was responsible for building up policed departments in our sector. That included equipping them with vehicles, guns, vests and training them. It was a good feeling to watch them go from nothing to a new building that was recruiting personnel.”

Nick Ardillo By Slim Smith | [email protected]

When Nick Ardillo left his hometown of Homewood, Alabama, in 1962 to study at Auburn University, he had planned to become a veterinarian. Then, the 18-year-old took his first airplane flight.

He was hooked.That first flight launched a 27-

year career in the U.S. Air Force.

Commissioned as a second lieutenant in Dec.1966, Ardillo was thrust into combat almost immediately as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, later becoming a flight instructor and finally wing commander of the 14th Flying Training Wing at Columbus Air Force Base (1991-1993).

The 71-year-old retired colonel now spends his time on his 33-acre mini-ranch in west Lowndes County with his wife, Mary, where he tends to his three horses and tinkers with antique automobiles.

His flying days may be over, but his memories remain fresh, especially his time as 25-year-old combat fighter in Southeast Asia.

“Anytime you fly in combat, you have vivid memories,” Ardillo says. “The thing that stands out to me is how close you become with your military family. You are over there, fighting and flying and dying together with your buddies. Aside from your immediate family, you can’t get any closer than that.”

The Ardillos have two children and three grandchildren.

Rice

Ardillo

Hunter


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Commissioned as a second lieutenant in Dec.1966, Ardillo was thrust into combat almost immediately as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, later becoming a flight instructor and finally wing commander of the 14th Flying Training Wing at Columbus Air Force Base (1991-1993).

The 71-year-old retired colonel now spends his time on his 33-acre mini-ranch in west Lowndes County with his wife, Mary, where he tends to his three horses and tinkers with antique automobiles.

His flying days may be over, but his memories remain fresh, especially his time as 25-year-old combat fighter in Southeast Asia.

“Anytime you fly in combat, you have vivid memories,” Ardillo says. “The thing that stands out to me is how close you become with your military family. You are over there, fighting and flying and dying together with your buddies. Aside from your immediate family, you can’t get any closer than that.”

The Ardillos have two children and three grandchildren.


Robert Bishop By Slim Smith | [email protected]

Robert Bishop credits two things for his remarkable 24-year career as a Special Ops soldier in the U.S. Army — a community pool in his hometown of Starkville and an incredibly understanding wife.

Bishop, who joined the Army in 1974 and made it through the rigorous Special Ops training, said the little pool gave him an advantage.

“Because of that pool, I learned to be a good swimmer,” he says. “A lot of candidates couldn’t swim or swim well, especially a lot of the black soldiers. So that really worked to my advantage.”

As a member of Special Ops, Bishop found himself in military hot spots all over the world from Grenada to Bosnia to Panama and, Bishop says, “some places I still can’t talk about.”

The nature of his job meant being ready to deploy on short notice.“When I got home, I always had another bag packed,” he says. “When the phone rang, I

had to be ready to go and couldn’t tell my wife where I was going. I couldn’t have had this career without the support of my wife, who took care of our two kids.”

After retiring with the rank of command sergeant major in 1998, Bishop taught high school in Houston, Texas, before returning home to Starkville, where he taught ROTC at Starkville High for 11 years. He retired last year and now works as a bailiff for Oktibbeha County.

In addition to their two children, Bishop, 62, and his wife, Jerrie, have five grandchildren.

Stephanie Perkins By Andrew Hazzard | [email protected]

If Stephanie Perkins has a fault, it’s stepping up too soon. In 2001, inspired by her high school J-ROTC officer, she signed up for the National

Guard at the age of 17. “It led me in the right direction,” Perkins says. “The military offers so many options.”Perkins became a diesel mechanic, serving as an E-4 specialist with the 223rd Combat

Army Engineers. She was deployed to Iraq when the invasion began in 2003. When U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein in Tikrit, she was there. The scene was hopeful and memorable.

“2003 was kind of the beginning of everything,” she says. “It was fascinating, the way people celebrated.”

Perkins and her unit traveled through Iraq, providing mechanical support to units during the height of the conflict, conducting security patrols and distributing medical supplies.

Serving in Iraq helped guide Perkins to her current job as a Starkville police officer.“It’s a calling,” Perkins says. “I think I decided to apply when I was overseas.”The only problem was that Perkins was still 20 years old at the time. The chief told her

to apply the moment she turned 21, and that’s what she did. In 2005, Perkins became a Starkville police officer. She served in the National Guard Reserves until 2009. She’ll have been on the force for 11 years in January.

Perkins joined the military because it offered her an opportunity to explore diverse career paths. Already a diesel mechanic, soldier and patrol officer, she added another

line to her resume in 2009 when she graduated from the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officer’s Association Police Sniper Training. She remains the only female sniper in the state.

A native of Louisiana, Perkins said Starkville is the home she knows and loves. At 32, it seems likely she’ll find yet another way to serve her community before too long.

Photographs by Luisa Porter & Mark Wilson

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Salute to Veterans 2015