MSG. Robert Avino
U.S. Army National Guard
142nd Medical Company (CLR)
Desert Shield/Desert Storm
Saudi Arabia, Panama, Dominican Republic
1970-2007
U.S. Army National Guard
142nd Medical Company (CLR)
Desert Shield/Desert Storm
Saudi Arabia, Panama, Dominican Republic
1970-2007
“I think the worst thing about that whole deployment other than the casualties were the flies. They were there by the millions”.
Robert Avino was born On July 29,1952 in New Haven, Connecticut. Before he entered second grade his family moved to North Haven, Connecticut where Bob and his three younger brothers grew up. His father, who served stateside during WWII, worked in a silverware factory in Wallingford, Connecticut and his mother worked as a seamstress.
In June of 1970 Bob graduated from North Haven High School. At the time, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was beginning to wind down, but the U.S. required a steady stream of recruits to fill the ranks. The Selective Service draft had been in effect since World War II, but complaints had surfaced about bias in the draft process. To address this, a lottery system based on birth dates was implemented in December of 1969. By January 27, 1973, the draft was eliminated and the U.S. became an all-volunteer military.
Bob didn’t want to go to Vietnam, but he wanted to serve his country. He had a friend serving in the Connecticut Army National Guard so Bob decided he would join National Guard which would very likely keep him stateside. Bob joined immediately after high school. As it turned out, when Bob’s lottery number was drawn in 1972, it was so high it was unlikely he would ever be called to serve.
Bob went to boot camp at Fort Campbell in Kentucky in October of 1970. Bob’s eight weeks of boot camp spanned the end of October through December. Bob thought he would be leaving the Northeast and heading to warmer weather. “I always pictured the south as warm. It’s not warm…it snowed”. Boot camp was uneventful. “It was alright…we learned about fighting in jungle warfare with BB guns”. Bob graduated from boot camp and came home for a month. He next attended his Individual Advanced Training (AIT) at Fort Lee in Virgina to learn the basics of the supply management. His Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) was Stock Control and Accounting Specialist. Bob was hoping to learn about weapons, but the only open slot was in the supply area.
Bob was assigned to 1111 Aircraft and Missiles Repair Company in the Connecticut National Guard based in New London, Connecticut. “I had no idea what my job was. My first weekend drill was KP. I’ll never forget. I’m trying to clean this horribly burnt pot the whole day”. Bob eventually got out of the kitchen and became the full-time driver for the Commanding Officer.
In 1973 bob was married and his first daughter was born in 1974. Bob stayed in the National Guard for his six-year commitment and reported one weekend every month and two weeks each summer. He really enjoyed the camaraderie and when it came time to re-enlist, he did and he was promoted and received a bump in pay. When Bob wasn’t at the National Guard he was working as a Dairy Manager and a Frozen Food Manager at the local grocery store.
In 1979 he re-enlisted again, this time for three years. By 1980 Bob had accumulated 10 years with the National Guard and it made sense for him to stay for another 10 years. The 142nd Medical Company offered Bob a spot as the Parts Clerk at the Maintenance Shop (OMS 11) in New Branford, Connecticut. He would finally be able to use the training he received in AIT. Bob had one concern in moving to Branford. “I was a little afraid to go because they had this old-fashioned sergeant…and he would yell and scream at you to get to work…he later became a lifelong friend and mentor”. Bob started out as the parts clerk, then was promoted to the mechanic on the shop floor fixing trucks, generators and other types of equipment and in 1984 he became a full time National Guardsman with 14 years with the military. He advanced to Staff Sargeant and supervised all of the maintenance in the company. In 1987 Bob deployed to Panama as a mechanic with an MP company. He also deployed to the Dominican Republic to build a school.
Bob remarried in 1989 to a woman he met in the National Guard, and his second daughter was born in 1990. On August 2nd, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and annexed the country. The U.S. formed a collation and began to prepare to liberate Kuwait. Bob saw the news on television and was certain his unit was likely to be called up. “No later than November 1st we got mobilized and we were told we were going to go to (Operation) Desert Storm”.
Bob first reported to Fort Devons in Massachusetts and from there he deployed to Saudi Arabia where the medical company established its presence “in the middle of the desert”. “I pictured the desert like a beach, because I watched Lawrence of Arabia. It’s not like that at all. The day we landed in Saudi Arabia it was raining. It’s not dry”. He recalled the days were very hot, “ a dry heat and the nights very cold”. The soldiers tried to sleep in their Army tents but eventually decided to sleep in their trucks. The tents didn’t provide adequate protection from cold and the rain. The soldiers bought kerosene lanterns from the locals and slept with them in their trucks to stay warm. Bob recalled, “when it rains in the desert it becomes a giant sea of mud”. Bob slept with his M16 above his head and his gas mask next to him.
The camp was located on the border of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. “We were a Medical Clearing Company”. Injured soldiers were first brought to battalion aid stations for immediate treatment and then sent to the Medical Clearing Group. “They would send them back to us and then they would go to Germany. There was a big army hospital there”.
In January 1991 Operation Deseret Storm kicked off with a massive collation bombing campaign followed by a massive surge of ground forces. By February 28th the collation forces had driven the Iraqi forces back and liberated Kuwait. “Everything went kind of quick”. Bob recalled the battle of Khafji. This was one of the significant fire fights of the short-lived war. The Iraqi’s entered Saudi Arabia and took over the abandon town of Khafji. “I was in the back of my truck, and we had the BBC on and we could hear about the battle”. It took three days, but Collation forces drove the Iraqi’s out of the town.
Although Bob’s unit was not in direct contact with the enemy, they did sustain casualties. “We lost a doctor and a medic. The medic was a 19-year-old woman from Connecticut and she and the doctor were killed while traveling in a convoy. The circumstances of the convoy strike came under investigation and Bob recalled there being discussion of a fratricide. Bob and a buddy were responsible for towing the vehicle the doctor and medic were traveling in, to a maintenance unit where they made the determination if the vehicle could be repaired. When they arrived, they were met by the Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID). “A lot of investigations went on” and they continued for years after the unit returned to the states. “Our company commander and first sergeant were both relieved while we were over there”.
Even in a combat zone, the world can be a small place. Bob ran into a former battalion commander from his days in New Haven who he had not seen in years. They lived less than 10 miles apart, but they had to travel over 6,000 miles to run into each other. “It’s a small world, you know”.
Bob recalled working with British troops from an elite unit known as the Desert Rats. A group that was well regarded for daring dessert missions during WWII. “They integrated them with us. We had to bring enemy prisoners of war to a prisoner of war camp”. There were two British Military Police (MP) and Bob and Sergeant Saul. Bob recalled loading a dozen Iraqi soldiers that he estimated to be 15 or 16 years old. Bob sat in the back of the truck with the prisoners who were not handcuffed. “They were kind of submissive…I had 20 rounds”. The Iraqi’s spoke some English and were talking to Bob and asking if they could come to the United States.
During the trip they had to stop to make a bathroom break. “They thought I was gonna shoot ‘em. I had to demonstrate what we were going to do”. Bob talked about how there were roads but no signs in the desert. “There are landmarks”. They had some trouble locating the town where the prison was located. While they were driving through a small town the front vehicle collided with a Mercedes Benz. “So now we have to stop and have the accident investigated …these Iraqi soldiers…they smelled bad. They hadn’t taken showers for probably months. We finally find the prison on a hit or miss basis”. Once again in the category of it’s a small world, the MP guards at the prison were from the 143rd MP company from Hartford, Connecticut.
The fighting had ended by the end of February and by April of 1991 the 142nd was assembled at the Ali Al Salem air Base in Kuwait to return to the states. While Bob was waiting to catch his flight home, he recalled reading an American Legion magazine article about a Korean War veteran who was wounded by a North Korean tank and he was looking for a witness to help him with his disability claim. Again, it’s a small world. Bob knew him and had been in his Bar and Grill on RT 80 in North Branford, Connecticut.
Was Bob worried while he was in country? “Yeah, to a point”. Bob was told he didn’t have to deploy but he thought “I’m not going to leave (the military) now”. “We were behind the front line…sometime SCUD rockets would come through”.
There is an expression that an army travels on its stomach, but Bob’s memories of the chow were terrible. “I ate army crackers out of the MREs which are like matzah crackers…and peanut butter. The food was disgusting. By the time we got to the end of the chow line, there’d be a million flies on your hamburger. My mother sent over a jar of jelly one time. You would open the jar, they would smell it and boom, they were there”.
Despite its vast wealth, Bob was not impressed with the areas of Saudi Arabia he passed through. It’s a dirty country…the sanitation is bad…open sewers… The Iraqi’s were much more westernized than the Saudi’s. The Saudi’s were not, except maybe the rich”.
Bob returned home and remained active in the National Guard and was promoted to Master Sargeant. He retired on September 1st, 2007, after 37 years, 25 as a full-time soldier. Bob stays in close contact with the friends he made in the National Guard. Bob is happily single and is the father of four daughters. He wasn’t ready to completely retire so when he received a phone call from Sergeant Saul, who helped him guard the prisoners back in Iraq, and he asked Bob if he would like a retirement job, he said yes. Bob is a building superintendent and property manager of a building in New Haven, Connecticut where the New Haven Board of Education is based. Bob is also active with the local American Legion post and VFW Post 591 where he is the Vice Commander.
Bob thank you for your 37 years of service and sacrifices with the National Guard. You lived a life of military service that most people never hear about. It’s the people like you who make it possible for the military to properly function.
“I made lifelong friends that I still see four times a year”.
Robert Avino was born On July 29,1952 in New Haven, Connecticut. Before he entered second grade his family moved to North Haven, Connecticut where Bob and his three younger brothers grew up. His father, who served stateside during WWII, worked in a silverware factory in Wallingford, Connecticut and his mother worked as a seamstress.
In June of 1970 Bob graduated from North Haven High School. At the time, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was beginning to wind down, but the U.S. required a steady stream of recruits to fill the ranks. The Selective Service draft had been in effect since World War II, but complaints had surfaced about bias in the draft process. To address this, a lottery system based on birth dates was implemented in December of 1969. By January 27, 1973, the draft was eliminated and the U.S. became an all-volunteer military.
Bob didn’t want to go to Vietnam, but he wanted to serve his country. He had a friend serving in the Connecticut Army National Guard so Bob decided he would join National Guard which would very likely keep him stateside. Bob joined immediately after high school. As it turned out, when Bob’s lottery number was drawn in 1972, it was so high it was unlikely he would ever be called to serve.
Bob went to boot camp at Fort Campbell in Kentucky in October of 1970. Bob’s eight weeks of boot camp spanned the end of October through December. Bob thought he would be leaving the Northeast and heading to warmer weather. “I always pictured the south as warm. It’s not warm…it snowed”. Boot camp was uneventful. “It was alright…we learned about fighting in jungle warfare with BB guns”. Bob graduated from boot camp and came home for a month. He next attended his Individual Advanced Training (AIT) at Fort Lee in Virgina to learn the basics of the supply management. His Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) was Stock Control and Accounting Specialist. Bob was hoping to learn about weapons, but the only open slot was in the supply area.
Bob was assigned to 1111 Aircraft and Missiles Repair Company in the Connecticut National Guard based in New London, Connecticut. “I had no idea what my job was. My first weekend drill was KP. I’ll never forget. I’m trying to clean this horribly burnt pot the whole day”. Bob eventually got out of the kitchen and became the full-time driver for the Commanding Officer.
In 1973 bob was married and his first daughter was born in 1974. Bob stayed in the National Guard for his six-year commitment and reported one weekend every month and two weeks each summer. He really enjoyed the camaraderie and when it came time to re-enlist, he did and he was promoted and received a bump in pay. When Bob wasn’t at the National Guard he was working as a Dairy Manager and a Frozen Food Manager at the local grocery store.
In 1979 he re-enlisted again, this time for three years. By 1980 Bob had accumulated 10 years with the National Guard and it made sense for him to stay for another 10 years. The 142nd Medical Company offered Bob a spot as the Parts Clerk at the Maintenance Shop (OMS 11) in New Branford, Connecticut. He would finally be able to use the training he received in AIT. Bob had one concern in moving to Branford. “I was a little afraid to go because they had this old-fashioned sergeant…and he would yell and scream at you to get to work…he later became a lifelong friend and mentor”. Bob started out as the parts clerk, then was promoted to the mechanic on the shop floor fixing trucks, generators and other types of equipment and in 1984 he became a full time National Guardsman with 14 years with the military. He advanced to Staff Sargeant and supervised all of the maintenance in the company. In 1987 Bob deployed to Panama as a mechanic with an MP company. He also deployed to the Dominican Republic to build a school.
Bob remarried in 1989 to a woman he met in the National Guard, and his second daughter was born in 1990. On August 2nd, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and annexed the country. The U.S. formed a collation and began to prepare to liberate Kuwait. Bob saw the news on television and was certain his unit was likely to be called up. “No later than November 1st we got mobilized and we were told we were going to go to (Operation) Desert Storm”.
Bob first reported to Fort Devons in Massachusetts and from there he deployed to Saudi Arabia where the medical company established its presence “in the middle of the desert”. “I pictured the desert like a beach, because I watched Lawrence of Arabia. It’s not like that at all. The day we landed in Saudi Arabia it was raining. It’s not dry”. He recalled the days were very hot, “ a dry heat and the nights very cold”. The soldiers tried to sleep in their Army tents but eventually decided to sleep in their trucks. The tents didn’t provide adequate protection from cold and the rain. The soldiers bought kerosene lanterns from the locals and slept with them in their trucks to stay warm. Bob recalled, “when it rains in the desert it becomes a giant sea of mud”. Bob slept with his M16 above his head and his gas mask next to him.
The camp was located on the border of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. “We were a Medical Clearing Company”. Injured soldiers were first brought to battalion aid stations for immediate treatment and then sent to the Medical Clearing Group. “They would send them back to us and then they would go to Germany. There was a big army hospital there”.
In January 1991 Operation Deseret Storm kicked off with a massive collation bombing campaign followed by a massive surge of ground forces. By February 28th the collation forces had driven the Iraqi forces back and liberated Kuwait. “Everything went kind of quick”. Bob recalled the battle of Khafji. This was one of the significant fire fights of the short-lived war. The Iraqi’s entered Saudi Arabia and took over the abandon town of Khafji. “I was in the back of my truck, and we had the BBC on and we could hear about the battle”. It took three days, but Collation forces drove the Iraqi’s out of the town.
Although Bob’s unit was not in direct contact with the enemy, they did sustain casualties. “We lost a doctor and a medic. The medic was a 19-year-old woman from Connecticut and she and the doctor were killed while traveling in a convoy. The circumstances of the convoy strike came under investigation and Bob recalled there being discussion of a fratricide. Bob and a buddy were responsible for towing the vehicle the doctor and medic were traveling in, to a maintenance unit where they made the determination if the vehicle could be repaired. When they arrived, they were met by the Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID). “A lot of investigations went on” and they continued for years after the unit returned to the states. “Our company commander and first sergeant were both relieved while we were over there”.
Even in a combat zone, the world can be a small place. Bob ran into a former battalion commander from his days in New Haven who he had not seen in years. They lived less than 10 miles apart, but they had to travel over 6,000 miles to run into each other. “It’s a small world, you know”.
Bob recalled working with British troops from an elite unit known as the Desert Rats. A group that was well regarded for daring dessert missions during WWII. “They integrated them with us. We had to bring enemy prisoners of war to a prisoner of war camp”. There were two British Military Police (MP) and Bob and Sergeant Saul. Bob recalled loading a dozen Iraqi soldiers that he estimated to be 15 or 16 years old. Bob sat in the back of the truck with the prisoners who were not handcuffed. “They were kind of submissive…I had 20 rounds”. The Iraqi’s spoke some English and were talking to Bob and asking if they could come to the United States.
During the trip they had to stop to make a bathroom break. “They thought I was gonna shoot ‘em. I had to demonstrate what we were going to do”. Bob talked about how there were roads but no signs in the desert. “There are landmarks”. They had some trouble locating the town where the prison was located. While they were driving through a small town the front vehicle collided with a Mercedes Benz. “So now we have to stop and have the accident investigated …these Iraqi soldiers…they smelled bad. They hadn’t taken showers for probably months. We finally find the prison on a hit or miss basis”. Once again in the category of it’s a small world, the MP guards at the prison were from the 143rd MP company from Hartford, Connecticut.
The fighting had ended by the end of February and by April of 1991 the 142nd was assembled at the Ali Al Salem air Base in Kuwait to return to the states. While Bob was waiting to catch his flight home, he recalled reading an American Legion magazine article about a Korean War veteran who was wounded by a North Korean tank and he was looking for a witness to help him with his disability claim. Again, it’s a small world. Bob knew him and had been in his Bar and Grill on RT 80 in North Branford, Connecticut.
Was Bob worried while he was in country? “Yeah, to a point”. Bob was told he didn’t have to deploy but he thought “I’m not going to leave (the military) now”. “We were behind the front line…sometime SCUD rockets would come through”.
There is an expression that an army travels on its stomach, but Bob’s memories of the chow were terrible. “I ate army crackers out of the MREs which are like matzah crackers…and peanut butter. The food was disgusting. By the time we got to the end of the chow line, there’d be a million flies on your hamburger. My mother sent over a jar of jelly one time. You would open the jar, they would smell it and boom, they were there”.
Despite its vast wealth, Bob was not impressed with the areas of Saudi Arabia he passed through. It’s a dirty country…the sanitation is bad…open sewers… The Iraqi’s were much more westernized than the Saudi’s. The Saudi’s were not, except maybe the rich”.
Bob returned home and remained active in the National Guard and was promoted to Master Sargeant. He retired on September 1st, 2007, after 37 years, 25 as a full-time soldier. Bob stays in close contact with the friends he made in the National Guard. Bob is happily single and is the father of four daughters. He wasn’t ready to completely retire so when he received a phone call from Sergeant Saul, who helped him guard the prisoners back in Iraq, and he asked Bob if he would like a retirement job, he said yes. Bob is a building superintendent and property manager of a building in New Haven, Connecticut where the New Haven Board of Education is based. Bob is also active with the local American Legion post and VFW Post 591 where he is the Vice Commander.
Bob thank you for your 37 years of service and sacrifices with the National Guard. You lived a life of military service that most people never hear about. It’s the people like you who make it possible for the military to properly function.
“I made lifelong friends that I still see four times a year”.