William Howell - Army Strong Stories

Annual Turkey Bowl in the Netherlands

William Howell — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 03:35:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello everyone, hope you are having a great Thanksgiving! Today in Brunssum, The Netherlands players from my battalion and I played in the Annual Turkey Bowl flag football game. Our opponents were the Air Force who are stationed at Geilenkirchen, Germany and they have won this game the past 5 years. I played in last year's game and we lost 2-0 which was very disappointing. This year we vowed that we would not lose and bring the coveted Army/Air Force helmet back to AFNORTH Battalion....read more

Army Values- SELFLESS SERVICE

William Howell — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:42:00 GMT

By: William Howell
In my continuing series on the Army Values, today I am talking about Selfless Service. To me this me giving yourself to the Army and if the mission comes first above all else. The Army mission has to come first, that is what you joined for and it has to be accomplished, you will have to take care of Soldiers and sometimes you will have to sacrifice your needs to make it happen. There are times that it would be easy just to worry about yourself, however we are a team and there is no...read more

NATO Intermediate NCO Course- Command Relationships

William Howell — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 11:05:00 GMT

By: William Howell
I am a little late on blogging about this being that the briefing was on 22 July, but here it is. Switzerland is a member of the Partnership for Peace, and they have established an NCO school in Lucerne, Switzerland. They run a basic course (WLC equivalent), an Intermediate Course (ALC equivalent), and a Senior Course (SLC equivalent) and all of these are designed for NATO NCOs, mostly from other nationalities but US NCOs can attend as well. At the end of tier two week course they have a...read more

Army Values-Respect

William Howell — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 23:05:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Continuing with my Army Values series today I am talking about Respect, respect to me means being respectful to your seniors, your peers, subordinates and the Army. Being respectful means listening and paying people the proper courtesy even if you do not like the person or the mission. Many times, you hear that you do not have the person, but you must respect the rank, and this is true. The Army's says Respect is treat people as they should be treated. In the Soldier's Code, we...read more

Army Physical Readiness Test- a Family Affair

William Howell — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 08:57:00 GMT

By: William Howell
The USANATO Brigade (my brigade) was chosen to be one of the test units for the new Army Physical Readiness Test (APRT), so this past week in Brunssum we gave and took the APRT to about 25 personnel. This new test is very interesting and we have found it be very different than the current Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT). For instance the the standing long jump is more of a technique event knowing how to use you legs and jumping from the balls of your feet is something you need to learn to...read more

Army Values- DUTY

William Howell — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:19:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Continuing my blog series on the seven Army Values, I will now talk about Duty, the Army defines it as to Fulfill your obligations. Doing your duty means more than carrying out your assigned tasks. Duty means being able to accomplish tasks as part of a team. The work of the U.S. Army is a complex combination of missions, tasks and responsibilities — all in constant motion. Our work entails building one assignment onto another. You fulfill your obligations as a part of your unit...read more

Army Values- LOYALTY

William Howell — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:15:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello, I am doing a series of blogs in which I talk about each of the seven Army Values, what they should mean and what they mean to me. Obviously the first one I am going to talk about is Loyalty. The Army definition is- Bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit and other Soldiers. Bearing true faith and allegiance is a matter of believing in and devoting yourself to something or someone. A loyal Soldier is one who supports the leadership and stands...read more

NCOs-Back to the Basics

William Howell — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:13:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello to everyone, the past month our senior leadership has been briefing us and talking about the Army Values and how NCOs need to go back to the basics. At first I was a little confused and was not sure exactly what they were trying to say. However, the more I think about it and I have thought about it a lot, I believe they are right. Yes, we all know there are seven Army Values and that we are supposed to live by them and most us do. But, do we all really know what each one of them mean...read more

USANATO Brigade's Ultimate Warrior Competition

William Howell — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:21:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hi again, today I will be talking about the USANATO Brigade's Ultimate Warrior Competition also known as the Soldier and NCO of the Year. This is the second year that they have ran this training and competition and this year they also coupled it with the CDR/1SG Summit. The Ultimate Warrior competition started with nine Soldiers and ended with the 2 winners, 1 NCO and 1 Soldier. This competition was very hard, the first 4 days were spent with the competitors going through training and the...read more

NRDC Family Day in Munster, Germany

William Howell — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 20:30:00 GMT

By: William Howell
I have seven personnel assigned to my company that work in Munster, Germany for the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps (NRDC), this is an international unit that has about 450 international Soldiers assigned to it. It is made up of personnel from several countries, the US, Poland, Germany, Turkey, Norway, Italy, and Greece to name a few. Every year in early June they have family day in which personnel from each country set up booths with themes and make their native foods and put out information...read more

Memorial Day Ceremony, Margraten, The Netherlands

William Howell — Mon, 30 May 2011 00:12:00 GMT

By: William Howell
TodayI was a beautiful day to attend the Memorial Day Ceremony at the Margraten, The Netherlands American Military Cemetary. This cemetary is the final resting place for 8, 301 military service members and they also list 1, 722 missing members. The Dutch citizens sponsor every grave and there is also a waiting list to do it. It is amazing to see how much they truly care and it was an honor to be there. My Family and I had the priviledge to sit with our Dutch counterparts and again it was an...read more

Visiting Soldiers In Norway

William Howell — Sun, 22 May 2011 09:36:00 GMT

By: William Howell
My company is the most disbursed in US NATO Brigade as I have Soldiers in four different countries. My company has 86 Soldiers and we have them in Norway, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. I just came back from my first site visit to Norway, there I have 21 Soldiers, Officers and a Warrant Officer and they work at the Joint Warfare Center (JWC) and they do training exercises for all personnel who are going to work for ISAF in Afghanistan. Stavanger, Norway is where the JWC is located and...read more

What A Great Feeling

William Howell — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:00:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hi again, yesterday I experienced one of the greatest feelings a NCO can have. The SFC selection list was released yesterday and when I reviewed it to see if any of my current NCOs had made it, I found out that one of them was selected. That was a great feeling right there, but as I reviewed it for more NCOs that I knew, to my delightful surprise two of my former NCOs made the list as well. Both of those NCOs worked for me at Fort Hood and I was very happy to see that they were selected to be...read more

Completion of Our Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills Training- NATO

William Howell — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 02:25:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hi there, I last talked about our upcoming Battalion Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills training exercise. We conducted the training exercise last week Mar 14-16 and it was a big success. The battalion S3 and the staff worked hard to put together a good three day exercise and all in all in went very well. I believe all of the Soldiers and NCOs who participated in the training learned a great deal and had a good experience. We had seven squads of about 7-10 personnel and they completed the three...read more

Warrior Tasks And Battle Drills In NATO

William Howell — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:16:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello again, it has been a while since I posted something and that is because my company and the battalion have been very busy putting together our annual Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills training exercise. This year the training exercise is bigger and better than previous years. We have been trying to put this together since November of last year and I as I always say, training does not just happen, it has to be planned. So, the battalion has expanded this years exercise to three days and we...read more

Why It Is Great To Live Overseas

William Howell — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 19:43:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello everybody, I just wanted to tell you why it is great to live overseas with your family. I have a 14 year old daughter and a 12 year old son, and a 3 year old son. The 14 year old and 12 year old play sports with Youth Sports (YS) on post and they have just started playing basketball. Their first game was last Saturday in Belgium, yes Belgium. We drove 2 hours to go and see them at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). Both of their teams won and of course that is great. But...read more

My Army Career In Review

William Howell — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:28:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hey everyone, hope your new year is going well. I just wanted to take a little time to reflect on my career as I am entering my 18th year (as of March 2.) Well lets see, I enlisted into the Army on 2 March 1994 and I really never thought I would make this far. I initially came in to provide some much needed benefits for my family at the time (I was divorced in 1998 and now remarried). At the time, I did not want to join the Army, but my ex-wife talked me into joining. I enlisted and my first...read more

Working In a NATO Unit

William Howell — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 10:25:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Happy Holidays to everyone, I hope that you had a great Christmas and that you have a better New Year! Today I want to tell you how it is to work in a NATO unit. If you did not know the Army has personnel stationed in Brunssum, The Netherlands and the post is called the Joint Forces Center. There is only a couple of Army units here, such as mine which is the Allied Forces North Battalion (AFNORTH) and it is part of the US ARMY NATO Brigade (stationed in Heidleberg, Germany). I have a...read more

Taking Advantage Of Overseas Assignments

William Howell — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:45:00 GMT

By: William Howell
I know many of you out there have been assigned to an overseas location and they can be challenging, but they can also be a great experience. Being stationed here in the Netherlands has and will give my family and I the chance to travel to many places that we would have never been able to. We have been here since June and although we have yet to travel to places like Paris (later this month), we have made it a couple of places close to here. For instance, we went down and visited a place...read more

Living And Working In The Netherlands

William Howell — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:08:00 GMT

By: William Howell
For those of you that do not know we have some bases in the Netherlands. I did not know this until I started working at the AG Proponent a few years back. I am now stationed at the Joint Forces Center in Brunssum, The Netherlands and I have blogged about this before. I just want to say that this is a great place to be stationed. There are many things that you have to get used to when living here, such as there are no Walmarts, Targets or anything like them. When you PCS here from the states...read more

Having Pride In What You Do

William Howell — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:42:00 GMT

By: William Howell
I have always stressed to my Soldiers that they should have pride in everything they do. Whether it is in their personnel life or professional life. The Army is a great organization and yes it comes with challenges and hard times, but there are a lot of great times as well. We all should be proud of our accomplishments and we should always strive to be the best we can. We should always be looking to improve ourselves and our work areas everyday. Come into work everyday wanting to learn...read more

Moving On To The Netherlands

William Howell — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:29:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Well my time as the 1SG of HHC, 171st Infantry Brigade at Fort Jackson, South Carolina is over and it is time to move to my next assignment. I will be the 1SG of A Co, Brunssum, Netherlands as of July and a new chapter of my life will begin. This assignment will be three years and I will be taking my family as well. We will have the opportunity to travel Europe and my children will be attending an International School, so it will be a huge culture shock for them, but it will be great for them to...read more

Attending The First Sergeant Course

William Howell — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:54:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hey everyone, it has been awhile since I posted something. I am currently attending the DA First Sergeant Course in order to get my "M" identifier. This is a mandatory requirement to be a First Sergeant. The active duty course has gone away since they are teaching some of the course in the Senior Leader's Course (formerly ANCOC). Now to attend the FSC active duty personnel must do it at a reserve or national guard training center. I am attending the course at Ft. McCrady which is right...read more

Pop Warner Football and Cheerleading Sports Banquet

William Howell — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:39:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello everyone, I have not posted in a while, so please forgive me. I have been very busy lately doing the First Sergeant thing, but here I am. This past Saturday we attended our daughter and son's Pop Warner Sports Banquet and it went really well. My daughter was the Captain of the cheerleading squad for the Pee Wee team in which my son was a safety and cornerback for. They had an okay year, they ended up 5-6 after starting out 4-0. This was only the second year for the association so they did...read more

Enjoying My Son And Daughter Playing Football And Cheerleading

William Howell — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:01:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello, how is everyone? Well today I wanted to share with everyone my son playing tackle football for the first time and my daughter cheerleading for the first time. My son Dontae has been used to playing flag football so playing tackle has been a big adjustment. He started out a little timid and did not want to hit or be hit, but now that we are four games into the season he has made huge strides and I am so proud of him. He plays for Northeast Seminoles here in Columbia, SC and they are now...read more

Trying To Start A Company- Not An Easy Thing To Do

William Howell — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:51:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello again to everyone, It has been a little while since my last post, so I will post one now. I have been in the First Sergeant Position for over two months now and I will tell you that is not easy starting a company from scratch. The company was activated in May and they have been through three different First Sergeants in that short amount of time. So, really there has been no time to really start programs such as NCODP, Warrior Skills Training, NCO/Soldier of the Month boards and so...read more

Life as a 1SG

William Howell — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:06:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Well it has been about three weeks since my 1SG Change of Responsibility and this job is very unique and challenging. Not only am I a new 1SG, but the company that I took over was only activated about two months ago. We are having to build the company from scratch and insitute such company programs as Urinalysis and other things. This is a brigade and almost all of my personnel work in the staff sections. With only 60 personnel, this makes it very hard when it comes to training and company...read more

A GREAT DAY: Frocked to 1SG

William Howell — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:55:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello again to everyone. Just wanted to write a blog about me being frocked to 1SG this week. Many of you may not know what being "frocked" means so I will explain it. Last October when the MSG board selection came out I was on the list with a sequence number of 95 out of 136 NCOs. Throughout the year HRC determines how many of us 42A SFCs will be promoted each month of the list. Well up until now, only nine 42A SFCs have been promoted. This means that it will be a long year waiting to get...read more

Taking a 1SG position

William Howell — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:33:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hi again, I hope that everyone had a great 4th of July holiday. This is a great time for me as I have had a lot of blessings lately, from being selected for MSG, my daughter, and other things. I have also been fortunate in my career to have worked in the next higher position as an E6 and E7. I was in charge of the battalion S1 as an E6 and in charge of a brigade S1 as an E7 so, that was in part why I was selected for MSG. In the past few months I began seeking a 1SG position either here at Ft....read more

Our daughter is home

William Howell — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:34:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hi again, in my third blog I talked about my wife and I adopting a 12 year old young lady. On June 21st my wife flew up to the state of Washington to pick her up and bring her back home to South Carolina. My wife arrived in Seattle at about 11am and she picked our daughter up that afternoon. The lady from the adoption agency came by the hotel that evening to give us all of the appropriate paperwork such as the letter stating that our daughter was being placed in our home, the court papers saying...read more

Life at the Adjutant General School

William Howell — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:14:41 GMT

By: William Howell
Hi again, I just wanted to let you all know what life is like working in the Adjutant General School at Ft. Jackson, SC. Prior to being assigned to the AG Proponent/Leader Development Division at the AG School I was assigned to MTOE or Operating Force units, coming from the 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood. At first it was hard to get used to working with all of the civilians here at the school, but as time has went on it has become easier. I was not used to having civilians in charge of mostly...read more

My Second Deployment

William Howell — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:56:17 GMT

By: William Howell
Okay people, I am here to talk about my second deployment to Iraq. We were there for 15 months this time and it was much different than the first deployment. I took over the Brigade Combat Team S1 in March of 06 and we deployed that October. We deployed to an area north of Baghdad and it was not a good area at all. Our S1 shop was responsible for deploying over 3,500 Soldiers within 5 days and this was minor task. I was on the advanced party so I could get everything setup on the other side to...read more

ADOPTION- IT IS A WONDERFUL THING

William Howell — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:08:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello to everyone, today I want to talk to you about how wonderful it is to adopt to a child. My wife and I have an 11 year old son and a two year old son and we have wanted a daughter for quite a while. We did not want to start the adoption process while I was Ft. Hood since I was being deployed a lot and there was no guarantee we would stay there. The adoption process takes a while since you have to a lot of paperwork, training, inspections, home studies, etc. to do. So, since we knew I would...read more

My First Deployment to Iraq

William Howell — Wed, 27 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hi again, I trust that everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend and that took time to remember all of those who gave their lives to protect our freedom in this great country! This blog is going to focus on my first deployment experience to Iraq. I was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas. We first learned that we would be deploying to Iraq in March 03 and that we would be departing Ft. Hood that June. We worked hard on train up and had loaded...read more

My Army Experience Up Until Now

William Howell — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello everyone, I want to tell you about my experience with the Army for the last 15 years. Believe me I will condense it since that is a lot of years to talk about. Well it all started in 1993, I was married with two children and I was working a regular job barely making it check to check. I enlisted into the Army so I would have benefits like insurance to pay for hospital visits and so on. I enlisted into the Army was sent to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma for basic training, I then went to Ft. Benjamin...read more

SFC Howell Introduction

William Howell — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:36:00 GMT

By: William Howell
Hello, I am SFC William D. Howell a Career Management NCO for Human Resources personnel and I work at the Adjutant General School in the Proponent/Leader Development Division (P/LDD). I’ve been in the Army for 15 years. I enlisted into the Army in 1994 and have been stationed at five different duty stations. I have served as a Human Resources Specialist, Human Resources Sergeant, Battalion Senior Human Resources Sergeant, and Brigade Chief Human Resources Sergeant. My last unit...read more