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HUACHUCA CITY — This is a story about a father taking up the warrior’s mantle from a fallen son.
Casey E. Mellen took off an Army uniform more than 20 years ago after serving more than six years in the service.
In the two decades since, the 44-year-old thought the days of saluting, marching and other GI activities were over.
 Casey E. Mellen is going back to the military as a way to honor his son killed in Iraq last year. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review) |
But Mellen’s son, Casey L., who is known as Case, was killed in action while on patrol in Iraq in late September.
Since then, the elder Mellen has thought about how he could honor his son’s sacrifice. He wrestled with what was the best way to do so.
It all came together in December “after a period of a lot of reflection,” Mellen said. And it kept coming to going back into the Army.
Saying he had a lot of “what ifs” to go through and had to talk with family members, Mellen said he knows the holiday season, the first without his son, was the driving force in making his decision to again don the Army uniform.
Technically too old to enlist, there was a loophole for former soldiers, like him, who could have a year cut off his age for every year he had served.
By doing this, he met the current top enlistment age of 42. Six years of previous service reducted his paper age to 38.
Then there was the second question: Should he join the active-duty Army or become a guardsman?
His decision was the Arizona Army National Guard, seeking out a combat-oriented position — in this case, as an infantryman.
During his prior service, Mellen was a Signal Corps soldier, reaching the rank of sergeant.
“They gave me back my sergeant stripes,” he said.
He now faces going to infantry training, but he doesn’t have to go back through basic.
The Arizona unit he is assigned to is the 158th Infantry Regiment, which is currently at a Texas Army post preparing for deployment to Afghanistan.
Mellen said he expects to go through the infantry training at Fort Benning, Ga., in the next couple of months. He may join the 158th in Afghanistan after that training is complete.
The 158th has a long combat history. Its roots are the First Arizona Volunteer Infantry, which was formed on Sept. 2, 1865. The 158th has been called up to federal service in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nicknamed the Bushmasters, after a deadly snake in Panama, the unit’s service in the Pacific during World War II led General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to comment, “No greater fighting combat team has ever deployed for battle.” During that war, the unit was known as the 158th Regimental Combat Team and was selected to spearhead the invasion of Japan.
Mellen is not bravado prone.
He speaks in simple, but direct, terms, sometimes with patriotic undertones and other times just with matter-of-fact statements.
He knows the danger facing America’s armed forces who deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan. Both countries have insurgent problems, with Iraq’s being the most difficult and Afghanistan seeing the rearing head of the Taliban.
Mellen, a civil service employee who works in the logistic section of the Army Network Enterprise Technology command on Fort Huachuca, deployed for a year to Iraq doing his civilian job.
During that deployment a vehicle he was riding in was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, causing some temporary damage to one of his ear drums.
His decision also included looking at the potential he might be elected in March for one of the three seats on the Huachuca City Town Council. Four candidates are running for the three seats.
Mellen said he’s been told if he is elected he can apply for an exception not to go because he will be an elected official.
“I will not do that,” he said.
Saying the people of Huachuca City “have been fantastic to me” since his son’s death in Iraq, Mellen said his responsibility to the town’s residents is to serve them, and right now that means as a member of the National Guard.
Mellen’s decision was not made alone. He talked it over with his family and fianc/e.
“They understand my reasons. They support me,” Mellen said.
Going back to his son, Case, who died from a sniper’s bullet when he was 21, Mellen said he is not joining the National Guard to seek revenge.
“If I had wanted to do that, I would have tried for a unit going to Iraq,” he said.
For him, it is important to do something meaningful in his son’s memory.
“I’m older than most of them going over, the 18- and 19-year-olds. I do have some (previous) Army experience, so maybe I can help them stay alive,” Mellen said.
SENIOR REPORTER Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
nicole ray wrote on Jun 21, 2009 3:35 PM: