By: Anna Wozniak
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
anna@thevillagereporter.com
“It took us going into the military to make this all come to fruition,” Randy Mills smiled, reminiscing about how his joining the army gave him the family he loves today, “we just celebrated 20 years in October, so you never know what the Army is going to do for you. You never know.”
His youth spent in Northern Kentucky being raised by Cindy and Larry Gross, it didn’t take long for Randy Mills to decide that college just wasn’t his thing.
When he told his grandfather, Bob Whisman, of this decision -Mr. Whisman made a decision of his own.
“When I told my grandpa college wasn’t going to work, he was like ‘you’re going in the military,’ and took me straight to the recruiter. I left literally two weeks later.”
When Mills left for basic training, he went to Fort Benning in Georgia, which is now named Fort Moore. After completing his Advanced Individual Training, he was shipped off to Hawaii.
It was there that his future family started to come to fruition. When he first saw Stephanie Swift in Hawaii, he recognized her immediately.
She had gone to a rival high school, and he had seen her at the recruit-ment office in Kentucky during his Christmas break after basic training. Using this to break the ice, Randy introduced himself.
“We officially dated for three months before she picked me up from work at the motor pool and told me I had to go back to my room and get dressed in something nice. I asked why, and she says, “we’re going to get married.”’
Stephanie went from Hawaii to Afghanistan, and Randy went to Iraq, each fighting on different ends of the War on Terror.
2006 to 2008 was a very contentious time in Iraq, with Sunni extrem-ists using suicide bombing tactics against religious minorities and U.S. allies. Randy was deployed there during what is known as “the surge,” which is a time when monthly U.S. losses were estimated to be anywhere from 1,000 to 3,500 a month.
He served as convoy security, helping to transport goods and people through the country under terrorist attack.
“We had a lot going on in Iraq. I was wounded and received a Purple Heart. I don’t like to talk about the things I saw there, I don’t like those memories. But we got to see quite a bit.”
The injury that led to the award of his Purple Heart related to an explosion that left shrapnel throughout Randy’s legs.
“It was okay, the army did a great job in mak-ing sure that injured soldiers are taken care of. They don’t just put them on the back burner, you know, they give you everything you need to get back into the fight. So it wasn’t that bad.”
And get back into the fight he did, until he re- turned to Fort Carson, working in the military police force on base for a couple of years, starting his and Stephanie’s family with their first two daughters, Kaitlyn and Kaylee. In 2009, President Obama made a commitment to bring stability to the tumultuous situation with Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, swearing to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mills found himself as part of the troops that were sent over in an effort to train Afghan troops to be able to regain control of their country against extremists.
From May of 2009 to May of 2010, First Class Sergeant Randy Mills shared that he worked with “convoy security, high detail escorts. If a big wig needed to be transported, we did that.”
Although he spent the same amount of time in Afghanistan as he did Iraq, Mills would say the two were pretty different from one another.
“When I went to Afghanistan, I was higher up in rank, so I got to see more of the planning and execution of how missions get done.”
‘Technology was better, we got more ad-vanced equipment than we did when I was in Iraq. I mean, we entered Iraq and Kuwait with lit-erally no armor on our doors whatsoever. Drove all the way into Baghdad, all the way through, with no armor. No armor, no protection on our vehicles whatsoever.”
“And then, you know, you get to Afghanistan a couple years later, and there’s fully armored vehicles. We were even selected for vehicle tuning and tested the ATVs, the new M-ATV -not new anymore, but it was new at the time.
So, it was definitely different. It definitely took a lot more tricks to fight against Taliban forces in combat, definitely a lot more fire fight in Afghanistan. A lot more.”
This time spent in combat definitely left an impact on Mills, including lifelong friendships. “We lost… we lost a few people. But, you know, I made friendships in both deployments that I’ve used to this day, and we keep up with each other.”
“The bond you make in the military, going through those events with each other, it definitely makes a bond that just is not going to break.”
After returning to Fort Carson, the Mills left for Vicenza, Italy, where Randy worked as an MP (military police) officer on the base reserved for the U.S. Contingency Response Force.
It was in Italy that their family was completed with the birth of their third daughter, Rosalee. “You know, she (Rosalee) was born at an Italian hospital, not even in America, so she has a Birth Abroad Certificate.”
“Italians don’t believe in pain medicine, so when my wife had to have a c-section, the doc-tors there gave her a Tylenol drip. That’s all she got until the army doctor came.”
After Italy, the Mills found themselves at Fort Campbell, in their home state of Kentucky. It was here, working as an MP, that Randy “felt the itch” to become a police officer.
After 15 years of active duty, he knew he wasn’t getting any younger, and collaborated with a program that helps military personnel transition to civilian jobs, starting his first gig as a police officer in New Mexico.
Wanting to return closer to home, Mills found himself serving the Village of Montpelier as an officer, and later (as well as currently) the Village of Pioneer as a K-9 handler.
It is here that Randy and Stephanie have made their home, settling into Williams County, with Randy also working with North Central High School as a football coach.
“You know, I would recommend the military to anybody. You get to travel the world. You’re going to see things that you never thought you’d see. People are born here in this tiny, little slice, and then when you enter that big, wide world, you’re like, whoa. It’s like I try to tell my football players all the time, get out there, explore. Don’t just stay here.”
First Class Sergeant Randy Mills is still in the Army Reserves today, ready to serve and protect our nation at any cost.
“I’m here for a reason, and I think the reason I’m here is to help make things better. You know, I was raised and taught to always make whatever you do leave things better than you found them. And I really try to do that.”
