U.S. Army’s Elite 160th SOAR Puts Arkansas Native John Woodie into Mix of America’s by Barry Smith First 9/11 Response Boot Campaign If you are looking for a job, a relationship, a place to live or even a new pair of boots, it is important to find a good fit. When a soldier enlists in the United States military, rarely do they come upon a role very early that turns into a long-term career, but that is exactly what happened to U.S. Army Sergeant First (Ret.) Class John Woodie III. After enlisting in November of 1995 at the age of 25, the Helena, Ark., native volunteered in 1998 for the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), or SOAR. Woodie successfully completed his assessment with the Green Platoon training program and was selected to join the 160th, a regiment he served with for 18 years. “I was helping one of my friends with fixing MH-47s when they came into Fort Bragg (N.C.) where I was stationed, and I saw they had the best equipment to work with,” explains Woodie. “I wanted to work with the best, the best people, best equipment, the best missions out there and that was with the 160th. “It was an amazing fit, something that I was kind of called to do,” adds Woodie, who served with SOAR in a variety of roles such as crew chief, flight engineer, and company standardization flight engineer instructor. “Not everyone can do it. I had some great leaders, teachers and NCO’s that showed me what it was to be a Night Stalker, and I tried to pass that on as well.” According to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), the 160th SOAR are known as Night Stalkers because of their proficiency in nighttime operations. The Night Stalkers are highly trained and ready to accomplish the very toughest missions in all environments, anywhere in the world, day or night, with unparalleled precision. Skillfully utilizing the world’s most state-ofthe-art equipment, Woodie specialized as 14
HOMELAND / September 2018
a weapons systems operator and honed his craft in the back of MH-47 Chinook and MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters during his decorated military career. He was deployed overseas 16 times as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom and flew close to 3,000 missions before retiring back to his home state in March 2016. One of those missions and many after were in response to the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001 when terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes and carried out suicide attacks on United States targets, causing nearly 3,000 Americans to perish.