[Armycop]

My name is Rick Saunders. I'll be 32 in March. I am happily married to my wife Denise(Littlemissdangerous), and i have a 13 year old step daughter. I was born in West Virginia, but was primarily raised in northern Ohio.

I enlisted during Desert Shield in 1990, and entered OSUT at Ft. McClellan, Alabama in 1991. My MOS was 95B, Military Police. My first unit was the 555th MP CO., which was a MP Corps combat unit stationed at Ft. Lee, Virginia. The unit had regular rotations to Panama and Honduras, but in 1992 we deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to oversee Haitians refugees detained at Camp Bulkeley for Operation GTMO.

In 1993, i PCSed to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. I was assigned to the garrison MP unit there, SB MP CO. While in that unit, the Navy requested our assistance at Barking Sands Naval Base on the island of Kauai. A planned Star Wars missle launch and detonation was garnering hostilities from the local populace. Well trained in riot control, we were able to handle the situation effectively.

In 1994 i was temporarily assigned to the 58th MP CO, another Corps combat unit on its way to Haiti for Operation Uphold Democracy. After the invasion, the Army took over a line of warehouses, enclosed them with defensive positions, and named it Camp Democracy. My unit handled Port-Au-Prince and Camp Haitian. Upon our return in 1995, i was reassigned back to SB MP CO, and ETSed in 1996.

Besides MP school, i also went to NBC and Life in captivity(a version of SERE), and had taken courses in Special Forces Operations. I was Dopplar radar and CPR certified, as well as MOUT trained.

The Army, and the military in general, has changed dramatically both during and after my enlistment. I am not a big fan of these changes. Ft. McClellan has been shut down, and the 555th has been disbanded since my departure.

I am now a Corrections Officer for the state of Ohio. My installation is a maximum facility in northern Ohio, and my current rank is Lieutenant.