Growing up in Parnell and Ravenwood, Master Sergeant Ritchie Walker shares with Northeast Nodaway students how he feels it is important to give back to the country. Joining the Army his senior year of high school (Dec.,1983), Sergeant Walker has now been to the Iraqi War and is now back in his civilian engineering job with Molex Inc. After joining the Army, Walker had completed his military experience in 1991, before deciding to rejoin in August of 2001.

As a member of the Nebraska Army National Guard, Sergeant Walker guarded Eppley Airfield from 2001-2002. In February 2005, Walker got the call he would be going overseas. After some homeland training, a series of 31 innoculations (shots), and some training on new skills, he landed in Kuwait on September 14th, 2005 as a military electrician. For one year, Sergeant Walker was stationed at Al Asad Airfield in Iraq. This airfield is the second largest active airport in Iraq, with 18,000 people and runs 12 perimeter miles.

When asked how the sand storms affected his work, Sergeant Walker explained how destructive they were to his job. He explained how sandstorms black out the sun, make it impossible to keep equipment clean and undamaged, and the fine sand particles end up in everything and made it hard to see. But that wasn’t the worst problem caused by the sandstorms, Walker explained to the group. He also showed the students how conductive sand is and how they had to watch for arches of electricity that would jump from one thing to another via the sand. Sandstorms are a big problem in Iraq from the beginning of April until the end of June.

Graduating from Northeast Nodaway in 1984, Sergeant Walker is proud to serve his country and stresses to the current students how he values its importance. Sergeant Walker also conveyed his appreciation to the students about how much the letters they had written to him had meant while he was overseas. He is the son of Roland and Donna Walker of Ravenwood. Talking with three business classes this past week was a great way for our students to gain insight into a world they do not normally have personal knowledge of. Thanks Sergeant Walker for taking time to share your experiences with us.