08/07/05

By Edward Lee Pitts
Military Affairs

The soldiers call him Colonel/Sergeant Price.

But Ronald "Butch" Price, a retired colonel and former commander of the 278th Regimental Combat Team who re-enlisted at a lower rank to go with the Tennessee-based unit to Iraq, says that's just fine.

The Athens, Tenn., resident now salutes soldiers who saluted him during his 30 years as a National Guard officer. He was the 278th's leader from 1999 to late 2000.

When the unit was called up for deployment in the spring of 2004, Staff Sgt. Price, 57, said he couldn't let the troops he led and trained go to Iraq without him.

"Every soldier realizes that when you wear our nation's uniform there will come a day when the nation will ask you to pay back some of the debt we owe to the soldiers who have served before us," Staff Sgt. Price said in a recent e-mail to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. "I have absolutely no regrets in staying with the 278th."

Yet Staff Sgt. Price's commitment to his extended military career has been tested. In the past 18 months, his wife fought and survived a bout with lung cancer, and Staff Sgt. Price endured the deaths of both his son and his father.

"I had lost the only two men that I truly loved," he said.

Peggy Ann Price said her husband of 35 years adores the Army, always talked about being an officer as a young man and rose up the ranks quickly after going to every advanced training school the Army provided.

"He has been preparing for this day for a long time," she said of her husband's first chance to serve in a combat zone. "This is in his blood."

Because Staff Sgt. Price spent two years as an enlisted soldier before being commissioned as a lieutenant in 1971, he was able to take advantage of a National Guard provision allowing officers who have been enlisted soldiers to convert to enlisted ranks after their officer's commission expires.

Staff Sgt. Price, who has worked 36 years with Bowater Southern Paper Corp. in Calhoun, Tenn., and is a senior forest supervisor, retired from the National Guard in 2001. Afterward, the new 278th commanders asked him to stay to help with training. Commanders have asked him to stay so often he now has 36 years of uninterrupted service in the Guard.

But Staff Sgt. Price did not have to go to Iraq. When the deployment orders came, he said he wanted to go to honor the soldiers who served in previous wars. His father, a World War II veteran with the Army Air Corps, was one of them.

Sgt. Price said the final decision on whether to go was left to his wife.

The family already had endured some crushing events, starting with Mrs. Price's successful cancer surgery in February 2004 -- just a month before the 278th got its official activation notice.

Then, about six weeks later as the regiment prepared to travel to Camp Shelby, Miss., for training, the Prices' only son, Paul Bryant, 21, was killed in a car wreck.

"There are no words in the English language to explain the pain, loss, hurt and, most of all, loneliness you suffer from losing a child," Staff Sgt. Price wrote. "There's not a day goes by that I don't think of him, and there never will be such a day as long as I live."

Shortly after the funeral, as the Prices relied on prayer to get them through the tragedy, the soldiers of the 278th learned they were leaving for Camp Shelby in June. Mrs. Price asked her husband why he wanted to go.

"He said he thought he could save some young boy's life," Mrs. Price said. "I told him if that is the reason I'd be OK."

In addition, Mrs. Price knew her husband would worry daily about everyone in the regiment while they were in Iraq if he remained behind. So, as she often had done during her husband's more than three decades of service, Mrs. Price helped him pack his bags.

"I love my wife, and if she would have said she needed me to stay with her, I would have immediately applied for a hardship discharge," said Staff Sgt. Price, who renewed his wedding vows with his wife in November before deploying.

MORE PAIN

Through training at Camp Shelby and at Fort Irwin, Calif., last summer and fall, Staff Sgt. Price said he learned 57-year-olds have a tough time keeping up with 20-year-olds.

"My mind says 'I can' but the body says 'you can't,'" he said.

Then late last December, not long after the regiment completed a successful convoy from Kuwait into Iraq and began settling into a routine, one of the 278th chaplains woke Staff Sgt. Price early one morning. Staff Sgt. Price's father, with whom Staff Sgt. Price had spoken to just 10 hours earlier, had died.

"My trip home was a blur," Staff Sgt. Price wrote. "I arrived early Christmas morning at my home, and our families prepared again for another funeral."

With encouragement from his 80-year-old mother, Staff Sgt. Price left again for Iraq 15 days later and remains there.

After eight months in the Middle East, Staff Sgt. Price says he struggles with the Arabic language, the heat, dirt and sandstorms, getting enough sleep, not seeing any grass or trees and trying to get soldiers to stop calling him "sir."

278th Capt. Reid Brock is one of Staff Sgt. Price's many fans.

"His opinion is worth its weight in gold to me," Capt. Brock wrote in an e-mail. "I am always running into soldiers who want to know if I've seen Butch around."

Staff Sgt. Price said he made it clear to every commander that he would not offer advice unless asked for his opinion.

"When this has happened, I always closed my input by saying they are the commanders," he wrote. "The ultimate decision is theirs."

SHIFTING ROLES

His time as the regiment's commander involved planning, but his role in Iraq involves executing the plans of others, Staff Sgt. Price said. Now instead of being responsible for thousands of soldiers, he usually oversees a "family" of about four to eight in a squad.

But 278th leaders are using his experience, shifting him around to fill a variety of roles for the regiment's 1st Squadron.

Current regimental commanders call Staff Sgt. Price the "Stopper" for his ability to solve problems or improve a situation.

So far he has worked in logistics, maintenance, tactical operations, personnel and as an instructor to Iraqi army troops.

"He has forgotten more about tactical operations than most soldiers will ever learn," said Maj. Jeff Basham, the squadron's executive officer. "He can understand the big picture."

Currently Staff Sgt. Price is evaluating ways to improve all the roadblocks in the squadron's sector in eastern Iraq.

Capt. Mark Smeltzer, of Chattanooga, said Staff Sgt. Price has won the respect of all soldiers.

"He is not one who leads by overpowering or with a loud voice," Capt. Smeltzer said in a recent e-mail.

Born on Dec. 7, 1947, six years after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Staff Sgt. Price tries to hide his former rank from newer soldiers in the regiment. But some of these troops have taken to calling him "Papa" or the "Gray-Haired Gopher Tortoise" after an animal common at Camp Shelby.

Always ready with an extra chew of tobacco, Staff Sgt. Price also is one of the most feared players on the Camp Caldwell horseshoe court.

"He has a country boy demeanor about him, but at the same time he can hold his own ground if he is talking to a diplomat," Capt. Brock said.

This fall the 278th and Staff Sgt. Price will return home.

Mrs. Price said the biggest sacrifice for both has been having to deal with losses while more than 7,000 miles apart.

"We really have not grieved together," she said.

Sgt. Price says it is hard for him to believe that his father and other older veterans will not be around when he returns from Iraq. He wanted to thank them.

But Staff Sgt. Price said the trials of the last year have him convinced that his family, which includes two daughters and four grandchildren, will survive.

"Nothing will diminish our faith in each other," he said. "If one of us is in need, the rest will come regardless of where they may be."

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com

On the Web: Photos by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika of the 278th Regimental Combat Team are available on the Times Free Press Web site. Visit http://www.timesfreepress.com/kp.

Story Copyright to Chattanooga Times Free press