LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - U.S. Air Force Capt. Jared King, a Forest Hill, Md., native and a cyber warfare operator, followed in his family's footsteps and volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan in support of Central Command's materiel recovery element as their communications officer.
Once in Afghanistan, he met with his brother-in-law and mentor, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Nathan Swartz, commander of the 703rd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, during a brief visit and tour of the retrograde operations the 703rd BSB and CMRE perform on Forward Operating Base Shank.
King deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom on a joint expeditionary tasking. As an individual augmentee, King is attached to the Army's 43rd Sustainment Brigade at Kandahar Air Field where he is responsible for the brigade's information technology help desk and leads a team of six soldiers and two Airmen.
After King graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 2006, he earned his commission as a communications officer from the Air Force Reserve officers' training corps. He spent the next four years at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, serving on the computer emergency response team and then joined the Air Force's new cyber warfare career field.
King's service carry's on a rich family tradition of military service. His father, Benjamin, was a highly decorated civil servant with more than 42 years as a Department of the Army civilian. The elder King, a mathematician who spent the majority of his career developing and improving the Army's field artillery systems, taught his son the value of service and the value of family.
The importance of family is a value Swartz, a Tullahoma, Tenn. native, and the Kings share. A few years after King's older sister Holly, who also served in the Army for more than nine years, married Swartz, they decided it would be best for their family if she left the service.
King credits his sister, a high school valedictorian and stand-out athlete at The College of William and Mary, as setting a great example.
"I had big shoes to fill," said King.
With about four months left on his deployment, King said one of his fondest memories of the deployment will be serving alongside his brother-in-law in Afghanistan.
Swartz, who mentored King since he was in high school, said he admired King's continued family tradition of military service and King credits Swartz with showing him how a military leader should act.
"I try to emulate his confidence and his bearing; the way he talks to people," said King.
King, who feels he's having an impact as an officer, would like to make the Air Force a career, "for as long as my wife lets me," he joked.
He and his wife Kristyn, a Penn State grad who enjoys a very successful marketing career with Chrysler, plan to start a family in the near future, and they will face the same decision the Swartz's faced.
Swartz flew a U.S. flag over his headquarters on Shank and presented the flag and a certificate to King to honor the service and sacrifices he and his wife make.
"I'm just so proud of him," said Swartz.
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