The Active Guard/Reserve soldier from Tacoma, Wash., was one of 100 soldiers chosen to participate in a special re-enlistment ceremony on the West Lawn of the Capitol to mark the Army Reserve’s birthday April 23.

Having spent seven years in the Army Reserve, he said, “I come from an Army family.” Standing by his side was his father, Mark, a retired warrant officer. “I didn’t talk him into it, but I was glad he did. I am very proud of him.”

Sgt. Loyd Livaudais is an engineer in the Army Reserve who has been deployed to Kuwait and an employee of Vanderbilt University in his civilian career.
He is looking forward to his promotion and learning new skills in plumbing and electricity. So is his wife, who talked about the patio he built using the skills he took home from the Army Reserve.

“I’m a military brat,” his wife Terrie said. “My father was an Army chaplain, so I’m used to deployments and moving around.”

“I was a closet military fanatic, working in a hobby store, with all the models and miniatures” Livaudais said. He was too young to serve in the first Gulf War. But then came 9/11. “Values change and I watched the two towers fall,” and he decided to enlist.

Micheleine Ridley said, “I am so proud of her,” referring to her daughter Spec. Amber Ridley, who serves as a cook in an Army Reserve unit in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Enlisting “was the best move she ever made as she told me when she decided to join. It was she needed” and joining the Army had been an idea that she had “tossed around for five years.”

Juergen Schumann joked that even though his namesake son, a staff sergeant assigned to a military intelligence unit at Fort Belvoir, Va., holds the same rank as he did when he left the Army 40 years ago, “I’ve got time in grade.”

For the Schumanns, 2008 has been a big year. In addition to being chosen to participate in the centennial celebration, his mother, Jean, who was born in Scotland, became a United States citizen, and he is engaged to marry Anne Newman, who serves as a first lieutenant in the Virginia Army National Guard. The couple met at the military intelligence school at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., after both enlisted following 9/11.

“It’s so nice to see people take responsibility to defend their country,” the elder Schumann said.

“It’s a privilege to serve, and for those who served before me, serve with and those who don’t want to serve,” Sgt. Dustin Ketron, a medic in both the Army Reserve and in his hometown of Greenville, S.C., said. “It’s just awesome being here.”

First Sgt. Mona-Lisa Medders said about her daughter, Sgt. Cyndi Tiede, “I am certainly proud of her. Seeing her walk around with a pacifier and now to see her leading troops is really something.”

The two soldiers from Gaston, Ala., are both mobilized.

“I’ve been in the Army for 27 years – active and reserve,” Medders said. “Cyndi’s interest began with looking for college money. She wanted to be a music major at Jacksonville State University and I encouraged to look into the Army.”

“There was no question I was going to do it,” Tiede, who has served five years as a human resources NCO, said. “It was just a question of what job I would do.”