Site Creator
Name: Nathan Christopher Lee
Age & Birthdate: 23, March 31st, 1982
Hometown: Austin, Minnesota
Occupation: Electrical Dispatcher; Cooperative Responce Centeer; Austin,
MN Office
88M, Motor Transport Operator; B Co, 434th MSB, 34th Infantry Division
*Currently assigned to B Co, 50th MSB, 42nd Infantry Division; FOB Speicher,
Tikrit, Iraq.
I first attended school at Southgate Elementary School for 1st-2nd grade, then Shaw Elementary School for 3rd Grade, then back to Southgate Elementary school for 4th-5th grade. I then attended Ellis Middle School for 6th-8th grade. It was in 6th grade that I first began to gain interest in web page design and built my first web page which was more or less about how much I hated school and couldn't wait until I was all done with it. In 7th grade is when I built my second webpage which was the first one I ever did on the Vietnam War. Although small and unprofessional looking, I did manage to get over 15,000 visitors in the 8 years that I did up keep on it.
After elementary school I attended Austin High School where I pretty much stayed a loner throughout much of the 9th and 10th grade year. In 10th grade was our first real in-depth look at the Vietnam War, where we spent two days going over the conflict. At that point I rekindled my interest in the Vietnam War and began to study up, reading everything I could get my hands on about the war, regularly watching the History Channel for Vietnam documentaries, and renting or buying all the movies and documentaries I could find about the war. In 11th grade, I began reconstruction work on my old existing web page and began upgrading it to a little bit more of a professional look.
In 11th grade I began to gain interest in joining the military, I spent most of my junior year talking to different recruiters about what they had to offer me and where in my life I go in each branch of the military. My senior year of high school, 2000, I ended up joining the Austin, MN unit of the Minnesota Army National Guard. I decided to join the guard instead of the active army for one main reason, a woman, a girl named Alison I was dating at the time; of course the relationship didn't work out, ending a couple months after I joined.
The first couple months of my senior year was spent at football practice and games, once a month after our Friday night football game, I would come home early instead of going out to celebrate a win, or discuss a loss, and spit shine my boots, and iron my uniform for a drill early on Saturday morning. My father, Dan Lee, was also in the Austin unit which was also part of my reason for going guard was to serve with him. He was an E-6, a Staff Sergeant, when I joined as an E-3, a Private First Class. I was able to get my E-3 right away since I was able to get a couple friends to join with me.
I then graduated high school in July 2001, graduating a month later then the rest of my class due to some attendance issues my freshman year. On August 14th, 2000, I found myself at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for my 9 week basic training. Due to some paper work errors our group of 60 trainees was held up at the reception station for four weeks instead of two, finally starting basic training on September 13th, two days after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon, and United Airlines flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the cockpit and took control of the aircraft from the terrorists. So basic training for our group of trainees (30 male/30 female), took on a whole new meaning. We knew what the future had in store for us, and you were able to tell the patriotic soldiers from those that only joined for the college money.
After graduating basic training on November 13th, 2001, we then caught a bus (our plane was delayed to a bomb scare at the airport, so we were transported by bus instead) to Fort Leonard Wood, MO. After 6 weeks of 88M (Motor Transport Operator) training, we graduated in January 13th, 2002. After training returning to Minnesota to begin my weekend drills with my home unit. I also registered for classes at Riverland Community College in Austin for web page design. After a semester of going through classes about stuff I already taught myself over the previous 10 years, I quit college to work full time.
On June 1st, 2004 our unit from Austin was activated for a year rotation as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. On June 4th deploying to Fort Dix, NJ, which would turn out to be 6 months of training and delays stateside while waiting to deploy overseas to Iraq. As part of our deployment we were attached to B Co, 50th Main Support Battalion, 42nd Infantry Division which is headquartered out of the stated of New York.
On January 5th, 2005 we boarded planes at McGuire Air Force Base, NJ, and flew to Kuwait where we did an additional two weeks for training and maintenance on our vehicles before we did a three day convoy to out new home, FOB (Forward Operating Base) Speicher, which is located on the outskirts of Tikrit, Iraq. Since being here at Camp Speicher, I have completed over 40 missions, and have been spending on average of 4-6 days a week on the roads of Iraq delivering supplies, troops, vehicles, equipment, and ammunition to other near by FOBs. I also began construction on this new web page during my free time in Kuwait, and working on bits and pieces of it here and there during a couple hours of free time I have every couple of days. Using existing information I had on my old site to speed up the process of building this site. This site will be a work in progress throughout the year that I am here, and I am sure for a while after I return to the states.
If you any questions for me, or comments about my site, please feel free to email me at nathanclee69@hotmail.com. I love to get feed back and ideas that I can implement into my site during future work. Thank you, and enjoy the site.