James
M. Modlin,
Jr.
PATRIOT, Chapter 1919
U.S. Army, IRAQ
James M. Modlin,
Jr. was born in 1979 when
his father was serving at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and this younger James Modlin claims with some pride, “I am an “Army brat” that attended public
and private schools in the many places that my father was assigned while I
was growing up. I graduated from Red Bank Catholic High School in Red Bank,
New Jersey in the Spring of 1998.”
Three weeks later, Jim entered the United
States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated from West
Point with the Class of 2002, and was commissioned Second Lieutenant,
Infantry. Shortly after graduation he married
Kelly Howard
(on June 21, 2002) who had also been a Cadet in that same graduating class
and she had been commissioned in the Adjutant General Corps.
James Modlin
went through the Infantry Officers Basic Course at Fort Benning, Georgia,
immediately following which in April 2003, he reported for duty at Fort
Hood, Texas where he was further assigned as a Rifle Platoon Leader in
Company B, 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. Meanwhile,
Kelly Modlin
had attended the Adjutant Generals Corps Officers Basic Course at Fort
Jackson, South Carolina, following which she also was ordered to Fort Hood
where she served in the 4th Infantry Division.
Jim’s battalion deployed to Iraq in
September 2003, ahead of the rest of the division, and they were quickly
engaged in operational missions. He was wounded twice during his tour of
duty in Iraq, the first time on September 23rd, then again on November 13,
2003. Jim says, “The first time I was hit, it was a round in the leg. I
was lucky and the medic was able to pull it out and the doc sewed it up for
me. The wound was so sore that I had limited mobility for a few weeks, but
we were in Humvee’s for the most part so that didn’t really matter. The
second time, in Nov ’03, I was on an Outpost when we were attacked by
insurgents in Khalidiyah, a town on the Euphrates between Ramadi and
Fallujah. One of the insurgents fired a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) at
my Humvee and missed, hitting the ground in front of me. I was outside the
vehicle at the time and was hit in the arm, hand, and face by fragmentation
from the blast. But, it was nothing serious, I got a few stitches here and
there, and was returned to duty within the week.”
The 1st Cavalry Division’s units began
returning home to Fort Hood in January 2005. In a ceremony on February 27th
the 1st Cavalry Division formally passed control of “Task Force Baghdad”
over to the 3rd Infantry Division, and by the end of March the major
elements of the division were back on station at Fort Hood. By the time he
left Iraq, 1st Lt.
James Modlin had been awarded the
Combat Infantryman’s Badge, the Bronze Star for Valor with oak leaf cluster,
and the Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster. Back at Fort Hood, he requested
and received a branch transfer from Infantry to Armor.
Lieutenant James Modlin
had moved up from Platoon Leader to Executive Officer in B Company before
completing his tour with the division in May 2005, at which time he left
Fort Hood to attend the Armor Officers Career Course in Fort Knox,
Kentucky. At this writing, Captain James
Modlin is finishing up a second
training course at Fort Knox, the Cavalry Leaders Course, and will soon be
enroute to Hawaii with orders to report to the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry,
25th Infantry Division at Fort Shafter.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Modlin,
now aka Captain
Kelly Modlin,
who also had a tour in Iraq (when she was in the 4th Infantry Division), and
who has most recently been attending the Adjutant Generals Corps Officer
Career Course, has also secured assignment orders for Hawaii and so the two
of them are looking forward to being together again soon while serving in
challenging jobs at one of the all-time prize duty stations in the Army.
|
