Veterans Service Officer Slept with Weapon in Iraq

Veterans Service Officer Kathy Marshik slept with her weapon
Morrison County Record
By Jim Wright, Correspondent
December 29, 2014

In June, the Morrison County Veterans Service (MCVS) Office got new leadership, after the retirement of 27-year director Paul Froncak. And the new leader has been around.

“I slept with my weapon,” Kathy Marshik said while recalling her time in Kuwait and Iraq. She carried that M-16 all the time, she said, during her 15-month deployment with the 142nd Engineer Company, out of Camp Ripley, during the heat of the 2003-2004 occupation of Iraq.

In the meantime, she was 5,000 miles away from her daughters, Sierra and Brianna, ages 6 and 2 then.

“My husband, Glen, was in shock when I told him I was deploying in a few days; and five days later I was gone,” Marshik said, “The worst day of my life was leaving them.”

She was a construction engineer supervisor during her time at bases near Udairi, Kuwait and Balad, Iraq. She was never directly fired upon, but her base was constantly being mortared, she said. Her other military occupation skills were maintenance parts specialist and combat medic.
read more here