Photo By Spc. Bryan Randolph | U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Rachel Copeland, a Noncommissioned officer in charge with the...... read more read more
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EAST POINT, GA. – As the 982nd Combat Camera Company (Airborne) prepares for a deployment to Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Rachel Copeland, brings experience from two prior deployments as the noncommissioned officer-in-charge.
“She’s been with the Combat Camera Company for her entire career. So, she knows all the ins and outs,” said 1st Lt. Yau-Liong Tsai, the officer in charge of the deployed portion of the 982nd Combat Camera Company (Airborne).
Copeland has two previous deployments, both to Iraq.
“When you bring along a seasoned [noncommissioned officer] who has had several tours under the belt, who has experienced everything that combat camera has to offer, it allows them to mentor and prepare their subordinates so that even though some of our Soldiers are relatively untested, things are not going to be quite as a shock when we get there,” said Tsai.
Copeland’s first deployment was to Baghdad, Iraq in 2003 as a specialist, where she was introduced to combat.
“I was inside Baghdad staying at the Al-Rashid when the Al-Rashid took 22 rockets to the building that morning. That was my first initiation to the real parts of war and guerrilla warfare,” said Copeland.
Her second deployment was to Camp Taji, Iraq, in 2006 where she was in a Humvee when it was hit by an improvised explosive device.
“It threw the vehicle in the air, opened it like a tuna can and flung everybody everywhere,” said the Hammond, Ind., native.
“I thought I had died. I was floating in the clouds,” she said. “Then I landed flat on my face.”
After the area was secured, she assisted with cleanup and putting litters with the injured onto helicopters. She also managed to find her camera and take approximately 100 photos. After more than eight hours, the convoy rolled back to camp.
“[I] got back in a Humvee and rolled back onto base, which was the scariest trip ever, but they say if you don’t get back on the horse you won’t get back out there,” said Copeland.
Despite these experiences, Copeland still loves her job.
“You get out there; you’re with the infantry,” she said. “We’re right there next to them, doing the same thing they are, only we’re capturing it for them later. So, I thoroughly enjoy my job.”
Copeland also serves as the unit administrator, making sure that all of her Soldiers’ needs are taken care of before the deployment.
“She has been our primary point of contact between the detachment and mobilization station; making sure that everything that we need to do has been accomplished to standard prior to our actual setting foot at Fort Dix and working all the individual training issues that the soldiers experience as we do our predeployment training,” said Tsai.
| Date Taken: | 06.12.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 06.16.2013 16:20 |
| Story ID: | 108741 |
| Location: | EAST POINT, GEORGIA, US |
| Hometown: | EAST POINT, GEORGIA, US |
| Hometown: | HAMMOND, INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 93 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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