A lot of heart: four purple ones, to be exact; Sgt. 1st Class Clark reflects upon retirement

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (May 7, 2021) – Sgt. 1st Class Steven Clark, a member of U.S. Transportation Command’s (USTRANSCOM) Intelligence Directorate, recently retired after a long, distinctive and very unique experience spanning 20 years of active-duty service.

After all, how many Soldiers have earned four Purple Heart medals during their military career -- all while a member of the same major command?

As he transitions from the military to spending more time with a growing family -- he and his wife, a retired Army field medic, are expecting their first child, a boy -- Clark reflected upon the events which shaped his career and those Soldiers he influenced and served alongside over that span.

Living in rural Georgia, “in the middle of the pine forest,” he said about his upbringing, he had his heart set on being a Soldier ... "since I was eight years old."

Clark used the words and actions of those around him growing up as inspiration toward his goal of becoming a Soldier. He listened to his grandfather, an Army Air Corps (later Air Force) member, share stories, experiences, and knowledge he gained from that service. His grandfather served during World War II, and later in Korea, but retired before the Vietnam conflict emerged.

There were others. His father was an operating room technician in the Air Force; he has an uncle who served as a Marine and later joined the Georgia Army National Guard; and his brother is a Green Beret (Special Forces Soldier).

"We could trace our military heritage all the way back to the Civil War," Clark said, "a legacy of military service."

He enlisted in the Army as a counterintelligence agent and left for basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. He later went to advanced individual training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

"That (the training in Arizona) was a shock," Clark stated. Days of extreme heat followed by nights of freezing cold was nothing like what he was used to growing up in Georgia.

After training, Clark reported to Camp Humphreys, South Korea, to work as a member of the 532nd Military Intelligence (MI) Battalion, 501st MI Brigade as a counterintelligence analyst.

A year later, the Army sent Clark to serve with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Within a few months there, he and some others with the 101st were shipped from the East Coast across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal and up the Persian Gulf to Kuwait. The almost three-week travel allowed Clark to establish and make friends who would see him through the deployment and afterward.

The first of his injuries which earned him the distinctive Purple Heart medal occurred during the initial push from Kuwait into central and later northern Iraq. The mortar blast injured his hand and sent shrapnel into his shoulder. The blast did more than that -- it took out his backpack and destroyed his poncho liner, nicknamed the woobie -- a combat Soldier's best friend.

Several months later, Clark would earn the second Purple Heart medal during a convoy operation toward Mosul, Iraq. Two men shooting at Clark's vehicle punctured it and hit Clark.

"It felt like someone punched me in the shoulder," Clark stated. "But it was tissue damage and a hole in a shoulder." He was medically evacuated to a combat support hospital, treated for his wounds and returned to his intel duties.

Two other injuries occurred during the same deployment. The third Purple Heart was earned after a sniper shot at Soldiers inside a compound, hitting Clark in his left calf. He earned the fourth medal while engaged with a combatant while Clark was working in a detainee holding facility near Mosul. The combatant tossed an improvised explosive device in Clark's direction and it exploded, sending about two pounds of shrapnel into his body.

"Trying to help me to fail my height-weight stuff," Clark stated jokingly. The injuries affected his kidneys, small intestine and lower spine. He recovered from all of those injuries, although he lost a kidney and was sent back stateside to the rear detachment at Fort Campbell.

He eventually found the opportunity to serve as a part of USTRANSCOM's intelligence cell, performing many of the same counterintelligence roles he performed "downrange" as part of the 101st.

Reflecting on Soldiering, Clark explained that there are elements which make a Soldier, a Soldier. "It's like they get them from central casting," Clark stated, “but you love them all. You know them and they know you." He added, "Sure, there's gonna be some changes -- we've changed the uniform several times during my career. The equipment changes, the mission changes, the procedures, the regulations -- all of that stuff changes."

"The Soldiers always remain the same," Clark concluded. "The Soldiers’ attitudes remain the same. The Soldiers’ capabilities remain the same. They will fight and die for you in a heartbeat. Our Soldiers are beyond selfless. They understand the Warrior Ethos -- the words might be a little different over time, but it's the same."

Clark has been offered some work with family members while awaiting the birth of his son, potentially a future member of the Clark family military heritage.

USTRANSCOM exists as a warfighting combatant command to project and sustain military power at a time and place of the nation’s choosing. Powered by dedicated men and women, USTRANSCOM underwrites the lethality of the Joint Force, advances American interests around the globe, and provide our nation's leaders with strategic flexibility to select from multiple options, while creating multiple dilemmas for our adversaries.

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