New Patriot cover story on Palazzo
There are 412,000 enlisted soldiers and airmen currently serving in
the Army and Air National Guard, and the vast majority
of them have a civilian career. But there is only one who
has the distinction of currently serving as an elected
member of the U.S. House of Representatives: Sgt. Steven
M. Palazzo (R-Mississippi). That also means he is the only
congressman—out of 535 in the House and Senate—who
is concurrently serving as an enlisted member of the
National Guard.
Sgt. Palazzo enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve dur-
ing the Christmas holidays in 1988. He broke the news
to his family, wondering how they would respond. It was
only then that he realized his grandfather and one of his
uncles were Marines. His father and brother were Navy
reservists. “I actually got off the bus at Parris Island on
January 19, 1989, and started getting screamed at by a
Marine Corps drill instructor,” Palazzo recollected with a
laugh. “That was the start of it all.”
Upon completion of basic training, he was assigned
to 3rd Force Recon, Mobile, Ala., and served as a regu-
lar drilling reservist for nearly two years while pursuing
an accounting degree at Mississippi State. His unit was
mobilized in November of 1990, and on Christmas Day
1990, he found himself flying to Saudi Arabia with his
unit for Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He
initially was sent to Camp Gray as part of Marine Central
Command. When the ground war began, he conducted
listening and observation missions near the Al Wafrah oil
field in Kuwait, supported forward operations, assisted
rapid response teams and apprehended enemy prison-
ers of war. Upon his return from the Persian Gulf in the
late spring of 1991, he resumed typical reserve duties and
….
Read more here
Begins on Page 12
May/June issue 2011
New Patriot
Magnolia Tribune
