Photo By Maria McClure | Karl Anderson, right, meets with Mater Sgt. Stephen Hall, left, and Col. Marcus Motley...... read more read more
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FORT KNOX, Ky. – Karl Anderson served in uniform for 28 years and then continued his service to the nation as a Department of the Army Civilian. Today he is the deputy director of the Enterprise Modernization Directorate at U.S. Army Human Resources Command.
“The Army took this kid with no particular skills and a mediocre college career and offered me a chance. I learned confidence, planning and self-awareness,” Anderson said. “The Army paid for my education, paid for my son’s education, gave me and my wife a good life, gave my boys excellent starts.”
Anderson began his Army career May 25, 1988, as a commissioned Artillery officer, which was short-lived because of an injury he sustained in Ranger School. His initial assignment required a Ranger tab, so he was reclassified to a nuclear weapons officer. Follow-on training took him to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.
“I spent nine months there. I walked in, being unable to speak German, and I walked out and could argue politics,” Anderson said. “And then the Army sent me to my first duty assignment in Germany, where I served at a remote site. There were 50 or 60 Americans total in the town. They assigned me the responsibility for about 100 atomic bombs.”
This was near the end of the Cold War when tensions between the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union were high. In the event of combat operations against the Soviet Union, the Soldiers assigned to the 1st U.S. Army Field Artillery Detachment would have the responsibility to move the nuclear weapons stockpile from storage bunkers to wartime sites that would be operated in concert with the German army.
“We had limited release authority. If the need to deploy nuclear weapons arose, the president would tell us what we could shoot,” Anderson said. “Then we had what we called general release where you would use your judgment.”
Military Intelligence
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Anderson’s service as a nuclear weapons officer was no longer needed and he returned to the United States. He transitioned to become a Military Intelligence officer and was assigned to Fort Richardson, Alaska. While there he completed numerous operational parachute jumps – something he had done 10 years earlier as a cadet at Airborne School.
“I learned how to be an Arctic paratrooper,” Anderson said. “It was all a lot of fun.”
During his time in Alaska, he was offered the opportunity to join a controlled population for special missions.
“Mrs. Anderson declined to support that,” Anderson said. “I told her there could be some consequences for declining a special missions assignment.”
Shortly thereafter, he was reassigned to Fort Lewis, Washington, to the unit responsible for all ROTC detachments west of the Mississippi and eventually transitioned out of the Army.
That was April 1, 2000, and Army records were not yet digital, which proved problematic when he tried to join the Washington Army National Guard.
Serving in the National Guard
Anderson wanted to continue his service, but the Washington Army National Guard could not find his military records.
“It took me five years of working with the Washington Army National Guard to get me into the Guard because I had disappeared – there was no record of my service” he said. “My records had been misfiled under somebody else's social security number.”
Once Anderson joined the Guard, he was promoted to major. Meanwhile he was hired as a cybersecurity specialist for Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, Washington.
“When I finally got into the Washington Army National Guard, I was part of their G6 cybersecurity team,” Anderson said. “But then in 2009 I got a job offer in San Antonio to take on enterprise-level cybersecurity for MEDCOM. So, I transferred over to the Texas Army National Guard where I went into the 71st Theater Information Operations Group. That proved to be a fateful decision.”
Information Operations
“The 71st is an interesting group. Their primary task was to send out a five-person team every year to the Multi-National Corps-Iraq to work out of the Al-Faw Palace to do information operations planning,” Anderson said.
No sooner had he been selected for promotion at his civilian job; Anderson was on his way to Iraq. This would be the first of four deployments to the Middle East.
“I was a future operations planner. And then was given the task of running the DoD rewards program where I would offer bounties,” he said. “I used money as a weapons system to locate and retire known malefactors.”
At the time, bounties were only paid for terrorists who were physically in Iraq.
“If that person went to Kuwait, he could be picked up, but there would be no reward,” Anderson said. “That seemed somewhat foolish to me.”
He believed the reward program would get better results if the bounty were worldwide without an expiration date.
“Much like the German war criminals from the Second World War,” Anderson said. “If you served in a camp you were a bad person then, you're still a bad person now, and you'll be brought to justice. So, no rest for these people forever.”
He took his suggestion to Central Command, and then to the State Department before it was put into practice.
“That was my parting gift to the American forces in theater,” Anderson said. “I returned stateside for a year, and wouldn't you know it – I was sent back to Iraq and was there 2010-2011.”
At the same time Anderson’s civilian job changed – he was offered a position at HRC, and he made the move to Fort Knox. Because his sons were still in school, his wife remained in Texas.
Despite the many moves and deployments, Anderson is grateful for the opportunities through which he met some of the best people he knows.
“I still talk to the guys that I was deployed with – old comrades. We take care of each other,” Anderson said. “The Army was the best thing that could ever happen to me. I had always anticipated only doing four years and getting out, then 28 years later when I was asked to retire by the Texas Army National Guard – you know, every career comes to an end – but I was not ready. I am a GS15 today because of the skills that I learned in the Al-Faw Palace.”
The future
For the first time in his adult life, Anderson says he is beginning to approximate the level of responsibility he had as a captain in the Army.
“Here I am at the pinnacle of my civilian career and I'm just now able to reach that same level of responsibility and authority,” he said. “And even then, it's an approximation because when I was a captain I had about 120ish Soldiers who lived and died at my command, quite literally.”
As Anderson thinks about his next adventure, he would like to complete his military education by attending the United States War College.
“Though I no longer wear the uniform, I still want to serve,” he said. “If I were to leave HRC and go anywhere, it would be trying to go somewhere I could do operational level planning and campaign and theater level messaging or operational campaigning. Not a lot of people like that but I think it's fun.”
Anderson freely shares his love for the Army and is infamous in his extended family for his recruiting efforts. His youngest son serves as an Infantry captain and Airborne Ranger whose first combat tour was part of CJTF-OIR, where Anderson did his last tour.
“My last combat patch is his combat patch,” he said. “He told me he didn't understand what I did and what the hook was. He understood it intellectually, but not in his heart. He spent a year there doing the mission, and he told me he gets it now. It’s rewarding to see him excel. He's a far better officer than I was.”
Anderson’s oldest son serves in his community as a police officer.
“My family owes everything to the Army,” he said. “My father was a Soldier. My brother was a Soldier. My sister was a Soldier. I'm a Soldier. My son is a Soldier. I suspect that one of my grandsons will eventually be a Soldier, not because it's what we do, but because it's a great business proposition. Because I was a Soldier, my youngest joined ROTC and ended up with no college debt. I gave my GI Bill to my oldest boy, and he graduated college with $30,000 in the bank. Who does this? You can be all you can be in the Army.”
Anderson participated in history-making operations and events including removing Gen. Manuel Noriega from power in Panama, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, removing Saddam Hussein and bringing a measure of justice to the victims of 9/11.
“We helped write history. We were there, we made it,” he said. “I had an adventure, and it was pretty groovy. Now, if I can go off to the War College and they send me to some place austere, I will have a huge grin on my face doing hard, unpleasant work under difficult circumstances until I am too old. Then I will be a happy man.”
| Date Taken: | 11.07.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.07.2024 16:41 |
| Story ID: | 484894 |
| Location: | FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 38 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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