From North New Jersey to Iraq
Thomas Park
Issue date: 2/21/07 Section: Features
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On the third floor of the Littauer Building, Alex Gallo (MPP1) carefully crosses his legs and leans back into his chair. When I ask him how the Iraq war has changed him, he pauses to collect his thoughts.
"It's made me more introspective about things, more reflective," Gallo says. "I was a leader and had a persona to put on. Everyday, you're asking your soldiers to do something unnatural."
Gallo is a recently minted Iraq war veteran. A captain in the US Army, he was the executive officer of a company of 360 soldiers within the 1st Infantry Division, deployed in late 2003 when Iraq took a turn for the worse. Gallo led dangerous missions to hunt down insurgents, fought in the battle of Samarra and engaged in reconstruction efforts.
He grew up in Knowlton, New Jersey as a third-generation Italian-American.
"I'm Italian. My parents are in the construction business in the North of Jersey. It's like the Sopranos-esque lifestyle," Gallo jokes.
During boarding school, he decided to attend West Point Military Academy.
"My parents gave me a strong sense of national patriotism," he says. "I wanted to do something different and challenging, with a public service component."
He received his commission after West Point and was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia during the 9/11 attacks. Time moved quickly after that. Gallo soon found himself in Germany and Kosovo and then deployed to Iraq.
"I don't think anybody at our level in 2003 fully conceptualized the constantly changing nature of the fight in Iraq. While training in Germany prior to deployment, we studied the situation in Samarra closely. However, once we arrived in country, the situation had evolved beyond what we had expected, stemming from the sharp increase in foreign fighters. So, immediately when we hit the ground in Samarra, we were already having to adapt to the ever-changing enemy."
Circumstances in Iraq had changed dramatically by the time Gallo arrived. Gallo and his soldiers were thrown into fighting a war already expected to be over. Insurgent attacks grew bolder and bloodier.
"It's made me more introspective about things, more reflective," Gallo says. "I was a leader and had a persona to put on. Everyday, you're asking your soldiers to do something unnatural."
Gallo is a recently minted Iraq war veteran. A captain in the US Army, he was the executive officer of a company of 360 soldiers within the 1st Infantry Division, deployed in late 2003 when Iraq took a turn for the worse. Gallo led dangerous missions to hunt down insurgents, fought in the battle of Samarra and engaged in reconstruction efforts.
He grew up in Knowlton, New Jersey as a third-generation Italian-American.
"I'm Italian. My parents are in the construction business in the North of Jersey. It's like the Sopranos-esque lifestyle," Gallo jokes.
During boarding school, he decided to attend West Point Military Academy.
"My parents gave me a strong sense of national patriotism," he says. "I wanted to do something different and challenging, with a public service component."
He received his commission after West Point and was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia during the 9/11 attacks. Time moved quickly after that. Gallo soon found himself in Germany and Kosovo and then deployed to Iraq.
"I don't think anybody at our level in 2003 fully conceptualized the constantly changing nature of the fight in Iraq. While training in Germany prior to deployment, we studied the situation in Samarra closely. However, once we arrived in country, the situation had evolved beyond what we had expected, stemming from the sharp increase in foreign fighters. So, immediately when we hit the ground in Samarra, we were already having to adapt to the ever-changing enemy."
Circumstances in Iraq had changed dramatically by the time Gallo arrived. Gallo and his soldiers were thrown into fighting a war already expected to be over. Insurgent attacks grew bolder and bloodier.
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