Soldier sees opportunities since joining National Guard

AL KUT, IRAQ

08.15.2009

Story by Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey Mullett 

28th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade

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FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA, Iraq — Some Soldiers join the U.S. Army for the adventure, some join for the college money. Newly-promoted Sgt. Sierra Harbison, a food service specialist with Company E, 1st Battalion, 150th Aviation Regiment, Assault Helicopter Battalion, listened to her brother and decided she wanted to add to the adventures she had already experienced.

Harbison, who was promoted in a ceremony, Aug. 15, at Forward Operating Base Delta, said her life has been filled with adventure and her promotion is another part of it.

"When I was 17 I had just finished my junior year in high school and I was selected through my church for a Rotary Club Exchange program to do missionary work in Chivilcoy, Argentina, a small city in Buenos Aires province," said Harbison. "I spent my senior year living with my exchange family and working with children at an orphanage. It was very hard to see so many kids suffering from abuse and neglect, but at the same time it felt really good to try your very best every day to help them."

Harbison became very attached to her adopted family; she came to view their father as her stepfather, "He was my second father, you could say," she said.

After the exchange program concluded, she returned to Argentina numerous times to visit her second family.

"I have gone back to Argentina intermittently over the last several years, staying for a few months or a few weeks each time," she said. "I tried to visit as often as I could, which turned out to be five out of the last seven years."

The area where her second family lives is a beautiful, rural area with lots of agriculture and horse farms just outside the city.

Since her initial visit to Chivilcoy, Harbison has completed some of her college education, but at 22 she wanted to do something to help make things a little easier. Her brother planned to become a member of the Montana Army National Guard and talked her into looking at what they had to offer. When she spoke to the recruiter, she liked what he told her. Harbison joined the National Guard, but her brother has not.

Harbison, who hails from Missoula, Mont., said she came in as a private first class because she has associate degrees in Spanish and Social Science from the University of Montana.

Harbison now serves as a food service specialist with Co. E. She has unique and interesting experiences, both in and outside the military.

"I was working active duty for special work for the Montana State Honor Guard, doing funeral details and color guards when, due to some personal issues, I decided I needed to do something else," she said.

She was told her "stepfather" was dying in October 2008 and unfortunately she was not going to be able to return to Argentina to attend the funeral. This event and her duties involving funeral details were the reasons she felt she needed to look in another direction.

"I found out the 28th [Combat Aviation Brigade] in Pennsylvania was mobilizing and headed to Iraq," she said. "I volunteered to go with them on the deployment."

"On February 7th I arrived at Fort Sill, Okla. and joined the Soldiers of my deploying unit, Co E, 1-150th AVN," she said, "My home unit is Company E, or Echo Company, just like my company here, 145th Forward Support Company attached to the 163rd Infantry based in the [Montana] state capital of Helena."

"I have gone from Pfc. to sergeant in just over two years and I feel like I have so many great opportunities open to me now as a result of joining the National Guard," Harbison said.

"When this deployment is over, I'm not certain where I'm headed. I will almost certainly go to visit my exchange family in Argentina for awhile," said Harbison. "But my unit back in Montana is slated for a 2010 deployment and they want me to go with them. I don't want to let them down but I'm not sure I want to go again so soon and I will have to think long and hard about it."