RAADSGROVE (KSNT) – During her 23 years of service, National Guard Truck Master Rebecca Elias has served throughout Germany, Iraq, and even locally in Council Grove.
As Elias looks ahead to life after high school, at the age of 17 he hears the call to duty loud and clear.
“I had other plans,” Elias said, “but for some reason the military kept gnawing at me. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my uncle were all in the military, and that just appealed to me.”
Elias worked in Germany in the chaotic and fast-paced world of telecommunications.
“It had a different meaning then than it does now,” she said. “We were working in a communications center with fixed lines of sight. Messaging and things like that. We were dealing with a lot of different units, a lot of different contractors, it was just really interesting to be able to see but not see what was coming through.”
Veterans Salute: Worldwide and Home Delivery
Her next mission took a very different route, trading her communications work for the dirt road.
“We were a fuel hauler, bolt tanks that we would haul,” Elias said. “We ended up getting called up to Desert Storm. So we went out there and hauled fuel to the front lines, fueled tanks, sometimes helicopters and things like that. It’s really rewarding to know that you’re taking care of supplies, that you’re getting things to where they’re needed. It’s really cool to be involved in the logistics side of things.”
Fulfilling that role as Truck Master meant a lot to the sergeant.
“The saying goes, nothing happens until something moves,” she said, “and we were the movers. You can’t get anywhere without gas. Sometimes we moved ammunition, we moved food, we moved water during Desert Storm. Nothing would happen unless we got there on time.”
After Desert Storm, Elias was deployed again for Operation Iraqi Freedom. An unlikely series of events led her and her husband Tony overseas at the same time, but not on the same team.
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“We turned units around,” Elias said. “I was in the main company and he was in the palletized loading systems company. My unit needed a First Sgt., his unit needed a Truck Master. So they turned us around, I wasn’t too happy about it, but they did it anyway, and we went back overseas. We went on to Iraq, just north of Baghdad. Our trucking company was phenomenal. Our main focus was the Sunni Triangle, which was one of the worst because a lot of things happened there.”
Next week we’ll hear more about 1st Sgt. Tony Elias and how the couple met through the Council Grove Armory at the Veteran Salute.
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