Courtesy Photo | Sgt. 1st Class Lacy Harrell Jr. poses for a photo in front of his flight training...... read more read more
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WASHINGTON — Sitting on the porch of a plantation house in Clarksdale, Mississippi, then seven-year-old Lacy Harrell Jr. saw a crop-dusting plane fly over his head. His grandfather, a sharecropper, was also on the porch talking to his boss.
Still staring at the sky, Harrell said, “When I grow up, I’m going to fly one of those.”
The boss laughed at the thought. However, Harrell’s grandfather didn’t take it as a joke. He motioned for Lacy to come in the house and as they entered, he said, “Junior, you can fly those planes if you want to.”
Harrell’s grandfather was a man of few words, but when he spoke people listened.
“That really stuck with me as a kid because I knew if my granddaddy said something, he meant it,” Harrell said thinking back on that day more than 30 years ago.
Just as he did then, Harrell takes everything in life as a lesson as he moves forward without any regrets.
Growing up in a rural, southern town, people doubted he could achieve his dream. Luckily, he was surrounded by family members like his grandfather who believed he could do anything he wanted.
After graduating high school, he was unsure how to make his dream a reality. His uncle, who fought in the Vietnam War, told him if he wanted to fly planes, he should join the Army.
He spoke to a recruiter, and after looking at his available options, chose to enlist as an intelligence analyst. There was just one catch, he had to leave for boot camp the very next day. He filled out his paperwork, and his dad met him at the hotel with only the essentials. His recruiter told him, “The Army will give you everything else you need.”
When he got to advanced individual training at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, he noticed he was the only Black Soldier in his entire platoon. He learned from a young age that hard work could overcome other people’s prejudgments and over time he realized that was also true of the military.
"What I learned in the Army is people take out the color barrier, and they look at your production and your achievement,” he said. “That made me feel comfortable."
The Army also made things uncomfortable by throwing him in the fire at a young age. He deployed to Iraq in his first year as part of the 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment. There, he went through a 15-month-long deployment learning combat operations and intelligence strategy while bonding with his fellow service members.
"Everybody was the same once we went down range," he explained. "I knew I had a crew behind me that was going to protect me at every corner, and I knew the people I was with were willing to give their life just like I was willing to give my life for them."
Two years later, he went back to Iraq with the same unit but with a much different mission. This time he worked with the State Department. He collected and analyzed data on the local area to determine their focus for civil projects.
“That was a big eye-opener for me,” he said. “It’s helped me understand personalities and that it’s not always about an enemy combatant. I loved it.”
The deployments didn’t stop there. Four months after getting to his new unit in Germany, he deployed to Afghanistan as a company course team leader before moving into a liaison position with a Polish unit. This allowed him to learn how foreign military organizations are structured and how they gather intelligence.
Then he finally got to his first aviation unit, the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Cavazos, Texas. It wasn’t long before he deployed again to Afghanistan with the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment. During that deployment, he watched tapes of AH-64 Apache helicopter strikes. The stress of that mission took a toll on him.
"You see [death] enough times, and it kind of warps your brain,” he said. “You kind of become numb to it. It takes you a while to get over stuff because you see it so often."
The constant deployments also took a toll on his personal life. He got a divorce and missed big family milestones. He also couldn’t celebrate many of his military accomplishments with his family. Throughout the hard times, Harrell continued to focus on the positives.
“I don’t regret a thing,” he said. “I met my first wife and have a daughter, met my second wife and my best friends, all because of the Army.”
After serving for 12 years, Harrell finally got a break from the deployments when he went back to the intelligence schoolhouse. This assignment was another mission in a career filled with new obstacles.
“Being an intel analyst has been challenging because every job is different, every assignment is different, and expectations are different," he said. “You have to be very adaptable in the way you go about your job."
He joined a team tasked with overhauling the warrant officer and enlisted intelligence analyst courses for the modern battlefield, adapting to the Army’s evolving multi-domain operations.
That job was followed by a move to his current command with the 15th Military Intelligence Battalion at Fort Cavazos. Now a sergeant first class, Harrell is the first sergeant of Alpha Company. During his recent change of responsibility ceremony, his family was finally able to attend.
"My family being there meant the world to me,” he said. “For me, it wasn't a celebration of doing something in the Army, it was a celebration saying, ‘I wouldn't have got here without the support from y'all.’”
Greeting his friends and family after the ceremony, his mom told him the family had been praying for him throughout his career.
"There were so many situations in Iraq and Afghanistan where I was living on their prayers," he said. “I could not ask for better people around me because they’re my support system.”
Being a part of aviation units in his career allowed Harrell’s love of flying to grow. Since 2012, he has been in flight training working on his private pilot’s license. It took some time, but he was able to use his educational benefits to help pay for his training.
He’s currently taking classes in aviation management and aviation science and is only a few credits away from graduating with a bachelor’s degree. His grandfather never got the chance to see him fly, but Harrell said he never forgot his inspiring words.
He plans to take his family for a flight after he gets his license and wants to be a flight instructor in the future.
Aviation might be his passion, but intelligence turned into his career.
“Even though I love aviation, intel is probably the better [Army] community for me,” he said. “The job is so vast and so broad that you can never get tired of what it brings to you. I think that’s why I like it. It keeps you on your toes and keeps you engaged.”
Harrell took his dream and turned it into a reality; despite the challenges he faced along the way, he doesn’t regret a thing.
“I’m grateful every morning I wake up and get to lead troops,” he said. “Sometimes I have good days and bad days. I take them all just the same.”
| Date Taken: | 02.15.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 02.26.2024 15:37 |
| Story ID: | 464729 |
| Location: | DC, US |
| Hometown: | CLARKSDALE, MS, US |
| Web Views: | 57 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Wheels up: Intel analyst follows passion for aviation, by Christopher Hurd, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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