Warriors in Peace Operations - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

CHAPTER 9
A REAR DETACHMENT COMMANDER
IN OPERATION JOINT ENDEAVOR
Lieutenant Colonel Sherrie L. Balko
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND PURPOSE
It is hard to know where to begin to thank the many
great soldiers and Americans who helped me survive my
year’s tenure as a Rear Detachment Commander. I chose
not to use names in this paper beyond those in the following
paragraph, because my accounting talks in generalities
about the members of the detachment and does not go into
specific situations. There also were many personnel
changes over the course of the year, and I did not want to
accidentally forget someone.
That said, I would be remiss if I did not thank some of the
key leaders who shouldered most of the burdens, had more
than their fair share of face time with me, and served at
least half of the deployment in the rear detachment. My
subordinate commanders, Diane Fortini, Rich DuBreuil
and Scott Baier were absolutely awesome. I only hope that
their next assignments were a bit more fun. My staff, who
were significantly underpaid for all the responsibility they
had, Maria Drew, Brian Dockery, Scott Pearson, Tony Hale,
Wendy Rivers, Mo Cashman, and Derryk Julien, kept the
brigade in the game. My right-hand man, Sergeant Major
Johnson, kept me squared away and let me know when I
was getting ready to do something dumb. A special thanks
goes to Lisa Stein, who did a lot more then the title
“secretary” would suggest. She kept the Headquarters
afloat and the paperwork moving, even when the rest of us
went to the field. I also want to acknowledge Jeanne Slupik
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