My first Army assignment was with the 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I was a 17-year-old paratrooper, a private first class, and the NCOs in my unit were, for all intents and purposes, my adoptive parents.
I listened closely to what they had to say and watched everything they did. They were for me what “right looks like.”
The father figure of my new Army family was Sgt. 1st Class Zop. Zop was my first role model and mentor. We didn’t know his first name, because we were not authorized to know. As far as we were concerned, his first name...