Mount Pleasant Magazine Nov/Dec 2019

75 www.MPMcalendar.com | www.BestOfMP.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com feature County and then around the world to such places as England, Japan, Germany and Qatar, including three deployments to the Middle East – the first, in support of Desert Storm from 1990-1991, and later in Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan. Along the way, and with support and financial backing of the Air Force, Walker earned a bachelor’s degree while on active duty and three separate master’s degrees after retiring. When he finally hung up his official uniform, emblazoned with an 8-stripe chevron, he took time off for himself before returning to the field to train tomorrow’s warriors. He accepted a job as a training coordinator with local defense contractor SAIC, where he assisted in providing radio sustainment training to U.S. Marines. When the contract ended, he seized the opportunity to return to Joint Base Charleston as a civilian employee. There, he resumed duties in the logistics field in the same squadron where he last served in uniform. In most respects, his transition to civilian and government life has been seamless. ERIC GRANA Eric Grana graduated from Hanahan High School with two burning goals: to marry his high school sweetheart and to join the U.S. Army. He accomplished both. His military occupational specialty was cavalry scout, which these days has nothing at all to do with horsemanship. Instead, his job was to observe, surveille and reconnoiter on the battlefield and report up the chain of command. He also participated in maintaining the readiness of mechanized resources ranging from Humvees to the M1A Abrams battle tank. From his initial assignment at Fort Stewart, Georgia, Grana was deployed to missions in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria and California’s Mojave Desert. He never saw combat, but he never saw much of the local people and cultures in the places he was sent, either. Nonetheless, Grana has happy with his military life, and might well have made it his career. But following the training accident, his injuries would have held him back from promotions, so he decided it was time to leave for the civilian world. Unlike Walker, Grana held no advanced degrees and was aware that his scout training didn’t translate to many job opportunities in the civilian economy. “If I had been trained as a medic or in some specialty like an electrician, it would have been easy for me to jump right into the work force. But for me, getting out of the Eric Grana. • Consultations • Personal Shopping • Home Staging • Executive Home Managers • Home Styling for Owner- Occupied Properties • Home Updates (painting, flooring, and more) The Lowcountry’s only full service home staging provider. Lorelie Brown, M.A., CPRES, CID Owner & Staging Principal 843.606.2811 lbrown@showhomes.com www.showhomescharleston.com