Reservists

Do you have a family member who is in the U.S. military reserves or has been called to active duty? How are your lives affected? What can you tell your community about your experience? Send essays of 200 to 300 words by Jan. 27, including a phone number for verification, to Voices/Reservists, The Inquirer, 800 River Rd., Conshohocken, Pa. 19428. Send faxes to 610-313-8242 or e-mail to pavoices@phillynews.com. Questions? Call Kevin Ferris, Pennsylvania Voices editor, at 610-313-8202.

There were no trumpets or crowds when the first Army reservists to be called up from Philadelphia reported for duty yesterday morning. There was no talk of heroics or medals. As they gathered at 8 a.m. at the Armed Forces Reserve Center on Woodhaven Road in Northeast Philadelphia, there was pride in their mission, tempered with a bit of embarrassment about how unglamorous it sounded. The 45-member platoon, part of the 442d Combat Support Company based in Bellefonte, near State College, will provide laundry, shower and bath facilities for front-line troops in Saudi Arabia.

Lt. Col. Allen I. Cohen has seen his share of combat. Whenever duty called, he has been separated from his wife and family. But for the Warminster resident and Air Force reservist, his late-December call-up and Friday departure to the volatile Persian Gulf region in support of Operation Desert Shield has been the toughest. For 28 years, Cohen has been attached to the military, either on active duty or as a reservist. Just after he and his wife, Sabra, were married, the Cuban missile crisis flared and he shipped out to Florida.

Staff Sgt. Edward F. Crawford of the Marine Corps Reserve says he's prepared to answer his call to duty. "You have a feeling of concern," said Crawford, a 38-year-old Upper Darby father of four, after he heard that President Bush had signed an order last week to call out reservists. "You wonder what is going to happen," Crawford said. "But it's something you train for. " "We're all anxious and ready to go," said Capt. Mark Haskett, an inspector-instructor in the Folsom-based Marine Corps Reserve 10th Bulk Fuel Company.

When Delaware County officials sponsored a parade last month to honor those from the county who served their country during the gulf war, the reservists from the 324th MEDSOM (Medical Supply Optical Maintenance) Unit based in Chester-Upland weren't able to attend. The 129 members of MEDSOM were still working in Pirmasems, Germany, where they were stationed for six months. When the reservists were finally en route from Germany to the Chester- Upland center on May 23, they were told by their superior officers to expect the pomp and circumstance befitting heroes coming home from the war. "We were told there would be a band, television crews, a police escort, and that the streets would be blocked off so we could march (to the reserve center)

Every other weekend, 1,400 Air Force reservists spend their Saturday and Sunday training for war among the massive refueling and cargo planes on the runways of this South Jersey military city. The part-time airmen fly the planes, load and unload them, and conduct mid-air refuelings that keep their unit, the 514th Air Mobility Wing, in action. But the reservists working at the sprawling Burlington County base yesterday had more reasons than usual to make sure every inch of the C-141 super haulers and the KC-10A refuelers was shiny and shipshape.

On Wednesday, Anthony F. Boyle exchanged one shield for another. Boyle, a flight engineer, wearily shed his flight suit after returning from a voluntary mission aboard a C-5 cargo plane to the Middle East in support of Operation Desert Shield. Then he drove from Dover Air Force Base, Dover, Del., to his South Philadelphia apartment, grabbed a couple of hours of sleep, and put on his shield as a Philadelphia police lieutenant and worked the midnight to 8 a.m. shift at 5th District headquarters.

It bothers Joseph Rondonelli to think of the "young kids sitting out in the desert" of Saudi Arabia while he's parked in the comfort of his home. Rondonelli, 38, is a pilot in the Air Force Reserve, susceptible to being activated for the Middle East crisis after President Bush's announcement yesterday that he is calling up Reserve units. But Rondonelli might not wait. He's considering volunteering for a 45-day active duty tour. "I'm severely tempted to volunteer" said Rondonelli, who is director of clinical laboratories at Hahnemann University Hospital.

ARLINGTON, Va. - A Marine Corps reservist carrying a backpack containing what initially appeared to be bomb-making material was detained near the Pentagon early Friday, but authorities later said the suspicious items were not explosive. Yonathan Melaku, 22, of Alexandria, Va., was discovered after 1 a.m. Friday inside Arlington National Cemetery. Melaku, a naturalized citizen originally from Ethiopia, was detained for trespassing after becoming uncooperative, authorities said. He had not been charged with anything as of Friday night.

TALK WITH DAN Hazley for 10 minutes, and you walk away thinking two things: That the next time your furnace breaks, you want the guy to fix it. And that Uncle Sam has some catching up to do. Hazley, 45, is a reservist with the U.S. Navy Seabees out of Lakehurst, N.J., and owner of Can Do Mechanical - a heating-and-cooling company he founded in 2004, right after he returned from his first deployment, to Umm Qasr, Iraq. He hired a few employees - vets, like himself - and business started to percolate.

John Church is a Marine reservist who will be president of Valley Forge Military College after completing his active-duty assignment in Washington In The Nightingale's Song , author Robert Timberg reviews the lives of five U.S. Naval Academy graduates who served the nation during the tumult of Vietnam and later during the Reagan administration. Timberg noted the thoughts of a fellow combat-decorated Vietnam Marine, James Webb, a novelist, Navy secretary in the 1980s, and now a Democratic U.S. senator from Virginia.

Leonard R. Wilf, 84, of Cherry Hill, a longtime furniture sales representative who served in the Air Force Reserve for 30 years and coordinated a 1972 airlift of food and supplies to Israel, died of cancer Tuesday, April 20, at Care One in Marlton. While working for a few years at his father's flooring business, Jonas Wilf & Sons in Philadelphia, Mr. Wilf learned the ins and outs of the sales world. He mastered the art of corny sales jokes and decided to branch off as an independent furniture sales representative.

An Army reservist wanted in the stabbing death of a man outside Manhattan's main post office was found dead Tuesday night, an apparent suicide, in West Philadelphia, police said. Sirmone McCaulla, 28, was discovered by his ex-girlfriend in the bathtub of her apartment on the 4900 block of Pine Street. The woman called police about 5:45 p.m. When police arrived, they found McCaulla slumped in the partially filled tub with a plastic garbage bag over his head and a television cable box on his chest, police said.

Four thousand members of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, including about 150 based in Chester County, have received word that they will mobilize on Sept. 19 for eventual deployment to Iraq around the end of the year. The men and women of the Guard's 28th Division 56th Stryker Brigade were put on alert last October, and have been expecting the official mobilization order that arrived a few weeks ago. One of the brigade's units, Bravo Company of the First Battalion, 111th Infantry, is based at armories in West Chester and Phoenixville.

An intruder is inside your body. Maybe it's a parasite from dirty drinking water. A virus from a coworker's sneeze. Or a bacterium that sneaked in when you cut your finger. Luckily for you, the immune system determines just which one of its many weapons will best repel the intruder, and what's more, it "remembers" how to do the job even better, and faster, next time. This phenomenon of immune memory has been recognized since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, yet no one could figure out how it worked.

AS A reservist, I travel with both my civilian clothes and military uniforms and am frequently harassed by airline ticketing agents about having too many bags or of their being overweight. But twice, an agent in Philadelphia was patriotic and interpreted her company's rules about extra baggage when it applies to the military and did not charge me for the extra baggage. But also for the second time an unpatriotic agent at my destination charged me on my return flight to Philadelphia.

Last month, fans at the Eagles-Bears game watched as a National Guard reservist who served in Iraq appeared larger-than-life on the JumboTron as the game's "hometown hero. " Yesterday the reservist, Nelson M. Long Jr., 36, of Myerstown, died in a one-car accident in Lebanon County. State police at Jonestown said Long, a sergeant first class who served in the 1067th Transportation Company of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in Phoenixville, was traveling north on Route 501 at 2 a.m. After failing to round a curve, Long's Dodge Durango struck two trees and then rolled over, police said.

"Turn into the wind, turn into the wind," one of the ground crew muttered at a parachuter drifting away. "He's taking off for Atlantic City," another figured. "It's a 6.4 from the Russian judge," a third said, to laughs all around. These Army reservists were watching colleagues jump from a C-130 yesterday over Coyle Field, an expanse of rutted sand off Route 72 in eastern Burlington County. It was a training mission involving 48 jumpers from four civil affairs units, reservists gathered from Washington to New York City.