SHREVEPORT, La -- Jimmie Williams left college early for the Army. He didn’t plan on staying long there either. But the extended family feel he enjoyed convinced him to stay for 30 years, that included an iconic moment in U.S. military history.
Jimmie was first sergeant for a headquarters company based at Fort Hood, supporting combat troops, deploying to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Nearly 70,000 troops invaded Iraq after the "shock and awe" of pre-emptive air strikes, hitting key Iraqi targets.
"It was kind of like eerie because we went to Baghdad, which was hit, it was desolate,” Jimmie recalls.
The capitol fell quickly, and Iraq President Saddam Hussein was on the run.
“I remember just like it was yesterday. We had spent months and months trying to find him. Every day he would move from city to city. And we found out that when he stopped, he was going into a hole in that city where nobody can find him.
"But from what this interpreter told us, it was like somebody squealed on him," Jimmie continued. "It's like, we know where he is. He's down in that hole. So then our you know, our intelligence went in and they eventually captured him."
Saddam surrendered when forces pulled the camouflaged cover of the underground bunker outside the leader's native Tikrit.
An Iraqi court would later sentence Saddam to death by hanging for the massacre of Kurds more than two decades earlier.
Meantime, weapons of mass destruction he was thought to have stockpiled -- the basis for the attack -- were never found. And an insurgency by al Qaeda inspired fighters dragged out US involvement for nine years, costing nearly 4,500 American lives.
Asked if it was all worth it, Jimmie replied, “I think so because I was able to meet the people there. The population, for the most part, they were happy that they became a democracy.”
Jimmie earned the Legion of Merit and other high commendations for his long career, retiring with the highest rank an enlistee can reach – sergeant major.
“I would not change it for anything in the world. I can't think of any other any that could feel more worthwhile," Jimmie says.
Before and after his year long deployment to Iraq, Jimmie served three stints in intelligence at the National Security Agency near our nation’s capitol.
Jimmie is still working today as a veterans service officer at the Veterans Affairs office in Bossier City, making sure vets here get the benefits they’ve earned.
