Two employees heading to Iraq
Thursday, April 10, 2008

Two U.S. Navy Reservists, who also are city employees, will be leaving their jobs and their families in June to serve in Iraq.

"[City Clerk] Howard Kroll has got his order to deploy to Iraq," Mayor Manley DeBeck said late Tuesday after the City Council exited an executive session held to discuss his departure. "June 19 is his last day at the city.

"We also have a gentleman at the water department leaving at the same time, so we’re losing two," he said.

Naval Builder 1st Class Glenn Kohles has worked for the water department for "going on a year now," Mike Riley, Brewer Water Department superintendent, said Wednesday.

"He’s really become an integral part of our team," he said. "We’ll probably hire a temporary person for a year or talk to some of our people who have retired to do something on a temporary basis" to fill Kohles’ vacancy.

Kroll, who is a hospital Seabee 1st Class, is the officer in charge of the Navy Seabees’ detachment based in Bangor. He enlisted in 1985 as an active duty soldier and in 1990 joined the reserves.

"That all changes once we leave," he said Wednesday. "Our whole battalion is being mobilized. [Between] 400 to 500 reservist in New England and upstate New York are being deployed" as part of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 27, headquartered in Brunswick.

"There [are] three waves of personnel leaving" in June, Kroll said. "I report to the reserve center in Bangor on the 20th [of June] and fly out within a couple of days after that."

The battalion will first go to Mississippi for a month or so of training before heading over to Iraq. No details about what the unit will be doing have been released.

During Kroll’s deployment, Pam Ryan, deputy City Clerk will be promoted to his post and a temporary full-time assistant will be hired.

"It’s not anything that I haven’t done before," she said.

Kroll and Kohles are not the first city employees to be given extended leaves of absence to serve overseas, City Manager Steve Bost said.

Steve Barker, who was police chief at the time, served two times, once in Iraq and once in Afghanistan, and Fire Department Capt. Gary Parent also served abroad.

"We do have a history of having employees take extended leaves of absence to serve their country," he said.

A copyright story from the Bangor Daily News, April 10, 2008.