Valley instructors make certain troops are COMBAT READY

HARLINGEN — Most days, Jeremy Mitchell, Thomas Marlow and Jorge Sandoval lead very different lives.

With school back in session, Marlow spends his days teaching science courses at Harlingen High School, while Sandoval frequents the University of Texas-Pan American campus studying toward his degree in criminal justice. In his day job, Mitchell patrols the U.S.-Mexico border as an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

However, all three serve as part of a local U.S. Army Reserves unit, using their combined years of combat experience to help prepare soldiers who may themselves head off to war some day.

Capt.  Jeremy Mitchell

The Alpha Battery 1/355th Regiment of the U.S. Army Reserves 95th Division, a unit of about 20-or-so trained USAR drill sergeants, deploys to nearby bases, helping train groups of new privates, said Capt. Mitchell, who heads the unit. The unit is based in the Rio Grande Valley.

“We’ll pick up a basic training company of privates, often to help alleviate the burden on active-duty members, and my drill sergeants become the platoon sergeants and squad leaders for those men,” he said. The men will often take privates through an entire eight-week training cycle, he said.

Mitchell, 37, originally from Minnesota, joined the Army in 1994, following in the footsteps of his father, a Vietnam War veteran, and his grandfather, who served in World War II.

“I think I wanted to prove myself, you know, because my father had done it and his father before him had done it,” he said.

Mitchell, once off active duty, eventually moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 2004 to join the Border Patrol.

Mitchell, who joined a local reserve unit in the Valley, deployed to Afghanistan in December 2004 for an 18-month tour, in which he worked as an embedded trainer, or “combat advisor,” with the Afghan army, he said.

After spending three months at a Canadian Special Forces camp training with his assigned Afghan team, Mitchell said his unit made their way down to a base near Qalat, between Kabul and Qandahar.

“For the first 30 days there, we were basically attacked every night — as soon as the sun went down we were getting rockets, machine guns hitting our walls,” he said.

“By week two, it pretty much became routine for us.”

Now a McAllen resident, Mitchell commands the local USAR drill sergeant unit, making sure all of his men are trained and qualified to lead privates through basic training.

Staff Sgt. Thomas Marlow

For most men in the unit, memories of being in combat drive them in their training efforts, making sure every private is equipped, ready and armed with the right tools to make it back home from war.

“Having been deployed, it’s always in the back of your head when you’re training those guys,” said Staff Sgt. Marlow, who spent roughly 15 months in combat missions in Iraq. “You take it seriously and you’re extremely tedious in how you train them, because you know that everything has to be perfect — there’s no room for mistake in real life.”

Marlow, 28, the Harlingen High School teacher, joined the military right out of high school and was stationed at Ft. Hood, where he met his eventual wife, now a U.S. Air Force veteran. Marlow, a Georgia native, was among the first soldiers who rode into Iraq through the Kuwait border following the initial invasion of the country in 2003.

Marlow recently recalled the near-constant mortar fire, improvised explosives and firefights that made up his deployment, in which he ran supply convoys through the Iraqi desert.
“I remember there were 11 guys who didn’t come back with us,” he remarked quietly. “There was one civilian who got hit by a mortar, and a handful of guys who got hit by IEDs (improvised explosives) on supply routes.”

Marlow recalled one incident, in particular, that shook him. A 23-year-old Army specialist, with whom he had grown close, was hit by an improvised explosive while inside his convoy.
“When he was hit, I remember it took the entire side of his vehicle off — and him with it,” Marlow said.

“I remember before we would go out on a convoy this guy would go around with a big ol’ bag of Jolly Ranchers, and he would go around laughing, handing them out to all of us,” he said, half-smiling.

“Still, to this day, I think of him when I look back and try to pay respect to my buddies,” Marlow said.

“It was hard.”

Sgt. Jorge Sandoval

Sgt. Sandoval, 25, a Valley native who joined the Army in 2005 and has served two tours in Afghanistan, also recalled the loss of a soldier that had a firm impact on his unit.

While a fellow soldier was patrolling in his humveee, a rocket flew through the windshield of the vehicle, exploding inside, Sandoval said. “That one hit us all the hardest, it impacted a lot of our guys, because he was so close to going home,” he said. The soldier, he said, was only 24 hours from being sent back to the States.

Sandoval’s combat experience makes him that much more dedicated to now being a drill instructor, he said. “I know I can really get into this, because it’s all about training those men to make sure they make it back,” he said.

Sandoval, who lives in Elsa, is now studying for a degree in criminal justice.