Special USO send off

Major Hal Johnston, 51, shaking hands with Leon Campbell, 72, a USO volunteer

Leonore Campbell, and Mary Nelson Adams of the Savannah USO

Ft. Stewart GA- When soldiers from Indiana’s 76th National Guard were finally ready to get on the plane headed for Kuwait, volunteers for the USO were there to give them a care package, homemade cookies, even clap for them as they stepped onto the runway.

“We’re here with the soldiers till the wheels go up on the plane,” said Mary Nelson Adams, 73, of Savannah who said she’s seen over 150,000 soldiers deploy and re-deploy.

Adams said that on one of the flights last week, she was in the hangar from 2 in the afternoon until 5 in the morning while the soldiers were waiting for a plane.

Adams is the Vice President of the Savannah USO chapter. And she’s been volunteering with the USO since 1954.

In 1962 she said she met “a nice military man” while volunteering. They married a year later.

Adams said she’s received a 2006 Freedom Award for volunteerism and also a recipient of the Jefferson Award given to her by President George W. Bush when he came to Savannah.

“You should see how big the trophy is on my mantle,” she said.

“I’m a widow now, with no children,” Adams said, “and I’m really putting my shoulder into this.”

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One of the soldiers in line to get a USO care package that included playing cards, toiletries gum and a free phone card was Major Hal Johnston, 51, of Terre Haute.

“This is my fifth deployment,” the towering major said with a grin, “second to a combat zone”.

Maj. Johnston is a Terre Haute prosecutor in civilian life. In Iraq he will be assigned to teach soldiers operational law such as when to engage an enemy and when to treat a civilian as a civilian.

“When that 19-year old opens up with a .50 caliber, he’s carrying out American foreign policy,” Johnston said. “That’s an awesome burden.”

He pushes counter-insurgency doctrine on the soldiers, getting them to step for a minute into an Iraqi’s shoes.

“Think Boston Massacre,” Johnston said, referring to what kind of reaction the British incited amongst the colonists. “Imagine your hometown having a Muslim Army in it,” he asked. “How would you feel?”

Maj. Johnston said the purpose of the class is to get the soldiers to think. “There’s no right or wrong answer, but thinking it through.”

Just before Indiana’s guard movement to Fort Stewart, Johnston wrote a letter in the local Terre Haute paper, the Tribune Star, describing the benefits of counter-insurgency in winning over the local Iraqi population.

General David Petraeus, commander of multi-national forces in Iraq, contacted him via email and invited him to a meeting when Major Johnston gets to Baghdad.

“This officer gets it,” Gen Petraeus wrote of Johnston.

See a link to Maj. Johnston's counter-insurgency article.