Getting to know: Dan Walczyk

VFW Connections

Dan stopped by the VFW on a Friday night in November of 2013 after driving by Post 1503 many times. After meeting Dallas—a future Post Commander—and enjoying his experience at the post, Dan signed up as a life member. Since then, Dan has been very active in many facets of volunteering and leadership. He works Christmas tree sales, supports bingo nights, helps with the community picnics, attends post breakfasts, and assists with the hospitality rooms for conventions. Currently, Dan serves as the Judge Advocate for Post 1503, and he is the Surgeon for District 10.

 

Dan was born in Cheektowaga, New York, a working-class town outside Buffalo. When he was four, the family moved to Elma. Although the town has now swelled to about 20,000 residents, there were only around 400 during Dan’s childhood. His mother was a kindergarten teacher and his father worked in a warehouse. Dan, as the oldest of five siblings, helped to care for his two brothers and two sisters.

 

As the local school system needed more students to meet the required class enrollment numbers, Dan started kindergarten a year early. As he was younger than his peers, his smaller stature and developing cognition often made school challenging for him. However, he enjoyed his history classes the most. Dan attended a Catholic school for grades 1-5 before transitioning to a private school in Buffalo for middle and high school grades. In high school, he was again bumped up a grade, until the school realized that Dan would be graduating at 16. Therefore, they held him back a year to graduate at 17.

 

Outside of school, Dan participated in the Boy Scouts of America, becoming an Eagle Scout, and spent a lot of time outdoors. He also worked on nearby farms doing whatever was needed. However, since everyone knew each other in the town, they were willing to give Dan some responsibilities on the farms as a teen.

 

After graduating from high school, Dan went to college in Pennsylvania to study political science. Upon the completion of his degree, he thought about continuing for law school, but he lacked the funding to do so. Dan then returned home for a year. However, despite getting a job as a manager for a beer distributer, the limited economic prospects were not sustainable there, as good jobs were scarce and unemployment high. The local Army recruiter offered him a bonus, schooling, and repayment of his undergraduate loans, so he enlisted in 1984.

 

 

 

Dan completed Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Benning (now Fort Moore), Georgia. As he had showed mathematical aptitude, Dan was trained as a mortarman. He remained there for his first duty station as a unit armorer and continued with his training courses. However, Dan’s leadership quickly encouraged him to apply for Officer Candidate School. He was accepted and commissioned in August of 1986. He then completed the Infantry Officers Basic Course, Airborne School, and Ranger School.

 

From there, Dan received orders to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He joined the 1-502 Infantry as a platoon leader and later the HHC XO (Executive Officer). It was a busy unit, and they spent roughly 300 days a year in the field or training. Dan completed Air Assault School and also deployed to the National Training Center, Camp Lejeune, Fort Bragg, and Panama.

 

Once he had put in his three required contract years as a Lieutenant, Dan left the Army. His initial plan was to use the remaining portion of his GI Bill. However, during out-processing, he was told that he would need to join a troop unit in either the Reserves or the Guard. As an Army National Guard unit was only 40 miles away from his home, he took that option and branch transferred from Infantry to Armor.

 

He had only been out for fewer than six months when he was sent to Fort Knox for the Armor Officer Advanced Course. He quickly moved from tank platoon leader to the Company Executive Officer. Soon after, Desert Shield started, and Dan was mobilized as one of many individuals. However, despite months of preparation, he didn’t end up deploying. Due to the amount of time in mobilization, he had lost his employment in the civilian sector. As a result, he joined a program as part of the state level counter-drug task force working with State and Federal law enforcement "cutting dope" in the eastern part of Kentucky. He worked on this for almost two years, spending some time in the middle writing training manuals at Fort Knox. During this period, Dan also became a Tank Company Commander on weekends.

 

Eventually, he moved to the Brigade Operations Shop as the lead plans officer and S-3 Air. He ran the operations center for the night shift, working on aviation and deep fire coordination. He also spent some time in Japan as an exercise officer in the IX Corps G-3 and Fort Hood as part of the 2nd Armored Division G-5 for training.

 

The State Chief of Staff asked Dan to do him a favor by going to Germany for 60 days rather than interviewing to be a general’s aide. Dan agreed, but soon found himself in Heidelberg for nine months. It was during this time that he met Monika at an on-post club with a country band. With significant encouragement from her friends, she asked him to dance. Dan’s worked as the Corps G-3 Air later moved to the Plans section of the G-3. He was heavily involved in the planning and initial deployment of forces to Bosnia.

 

His stateside unit was frustrated with the extended time in Germany and brought him back in March of 1996. However, by August he had received orders to Stuttgart, working as an Operations Officer in European Command (EUCOM). Although these assignments were disruptive, Dan was excited to be able to return to continue his relationship with Monika. Eventually she agreed to marry him in March 1998 with plans for an October wedding.

 

In the middle of wedding preparation and following the German requirements to publicly publish a marriage announcement, Dan received orders and became a Title 10 Officer assigned to the Army National Guard Headquarters in Arlington, VA.

 

Dan was supposed to go to work for one of his old commanders as a Special Projects Officer. Instead, he arrived and was promptly reassigned to the Program Analysis and Evaluation Division in order to work gaining resources and other special projects. To qualify for his position, Dan was sent to the Operations Research and Systems Analysis (ORSA) Course at Fort Lee. After graduation, Dan was qualified as an ORSA with a Functional Area 49 designation. As Dan explains it, the program focuses on "better living through math.” Dan felt that the training school for this program was "worse than any physical schools” due to the complexity of the material. He notes that "two smart guys” got him through the program.

 

During all this transition, Dan managed to make it back to Germany to marry Monika. However, Monika had to remain in Germany before her paperwork was completed, so Dan moved everything to Manassas. Monika arrived in April 1999, just in time to see Dan promoted to Major.

 

On September 11, 2001, Dan was supposed to be in a meeting at the Pentagon, but it was postponed. The next day, Dan was assigned to be part of the Crisis Action Team. As he knew everything about the physical security and needs of the bases, Dan was asked to share how much funding they would need as they ramped up efforts. He went over the requirements for items like fencing, parking, and phone lines, noting that his multi-billion estimate covered only the top 125 installations of the 3800 total installations he worked with.

 

Surprise orders back to Germany arrived on September 17, and at the beginning of November, Monika and Dan were back in Stuttgart. As Dan already knew his boss, he was put to work writing a paper within an hour of arrival. From November of 2001 to July of 2003, Dan worked in his old job as an Operations Officer working on war planning and the State Partnership Program.

 

He was then transferred to the International Affairs Division of EUCOM as the National Guard Liaison working Security Cooperation Programs. In this position Dan was constantly traveling throughout the EUCOM Theater. His transfer eventually resulted in his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.

 

In 2006, Dan returned to DC to be part of the International Affairs office at the National Guard Bureau (NGB). They made use of his European experience by assigning him as the Branch Chief for Latin America. Unfortunately, it really wasn’t a good fit, as he did not speak Spanish or blend in well.

 

In 2008, Dan joined the Army staff at the Pentagon by transferring to the Army Warplan’s Division of Army Operations. There, he oversaw homeland defense and regional operations planning.

 

He then received orders for Afghanistan and deployed in March 2009. There Dan worked primarily for a British chain of command, assisting Afghan forces in building and fielding over thirty new battalion-sized formations.

 

In March 2010, Dan returned from deployment and was assigned to the National Guard Bureau Operations Division as the Deliberate Operations Branch Chief. He handled domestic responses, weather-related events, and special missions such as Operation Phalanx, which provided troop support to the Department of Homeland Security on the Southwest border.

 

Rather suddenly in June 2011, Dan was nominated to be a field team leader in Iraq as part of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) and found himself leaving within days. In Iraq, he oversaw JIEDDO’s contributions to counter IED programs and was the chief Counter-IED Officer on the US Forces-Iraq Staff. He managed to also pick up a third title as the Director of the Counter-IED Operations Intelligence Integration Center (COIC) in Iraq. Initially, he was sent to help them draw down operations, but rapidly received a "be prepared for” change of mission in country. Dan was on one of the last aircraft out from the area when the operations finally closed.

 

After redeploying, Dan’s last duty assignment was as the military liaison to the Terrorist Explosive Device Analysis Center (TEDAC) as the FBI Laboratory in Quantico. Although he completed his mission there in January of 2013 and retired, the Army revised his retirement date to August 2014. In total, Dan spent almost 30 years as part of military service.