PS 175Q ThinkQuest Presents:

Military Memories

ARMY

Interviewing in the Blue Room at Fort Hamilton

Picture By: Laura 5-306

Staff Sergeant Schelequia Hazel is in the U.S. Army. She has served for fourteen years and has 6 months left. After she finishes serving she wants to be in Human Resources. Sergeant Hazel was in the Iraq war in 2003 for 45 days. “Usually they tell you earlier if you’re going to war.” She said, “I was scared to fight in Iraq, but I was still proud that I could serve my country.”

Besides Iraq, Sergeant Hazel has been to Virginia, Kentucky, Colorado, and for her new assignment she has come here to Fort Hamilton. During her five year stay in Virginia she was an AIT which is an Advance Individual Training. In Kentucky, New York, Colorado, and Virginia she worked at a Recruiting Support Battalion. She served in Colorado for one year, in Kentucky for four and a half years, and in New York for two and a half years. Her first assignment was to work with different branches of service.

Sergeant Hazel has good reasons why she picked the Army over the other branches of the military. She did not join the Marines because she thought they had intense training. She did not join the Navy because she didn’t like the water and couldn’t swim. She did not pick the Air Force because she is afraid of flying.

Before you go into any branch you have to take an oath in the Oath Room. She said she was, very nervous when she took the oath.

A regular day for Sergeant Hazel in basic training was to wake up and eat breakfast. They only have ten minutes to eat! At breakfast her favorite food to eat was toast. Then, they do weapons training, NBC training (Nuclear Biological Chemical), physical training, where she had to run between 2-5 miles. They only had four hours to sleep, and you slept on a bay of bunk beds or lockers. She said that they were comfortable to sleep on. Her basic training had sixteen females in it. On weekends she could see her family on Family Day. If you did something wrong and continually kept on doing it, they can either take away your rank or kick you out!

Sergeant Hazel had many different jobs. While in the Army she did Administrative work at a combat support hospital, and she was a 42 L. administrative specialist.

It took Sergeant Hazel two years to get her first medal. She has five Army Commendation Medals and two Army Achievement medals. She got them for having an exceptional job in her field, for being Soldier of the Year, and for Exceptional well on I.G. (Inspector General).

The Army has two uniforms. On Monday through Thursday you have to wear slacks and a shirt which they call class b’s. Fridays you wear your battle dress uniform. On the battle dress uniform you have to wear a patch that stands for New York meps when you are on a mission. A combat patch is if you went into war. The U.S. flag is only worn on the battle uniform.

People like Sergeant Hazel are proud to protect our country like many of the other service men and women.

2006/2007 ThinkQuest Competition-- The Lynn Gross Discovery School- 64-35 102nd Street Rego Park, New York 11374