WAINWRIGHT, Canada - Puffy white clouds drifted upon a gentle, but constant, wind in an otherwise clear, blue sky. Sunlight shined upon an open, grassy field, flanked by a thick forest and seemingly endless rows of military tents.
Chemical decontamination trucks belonging to the 50th Chemical Company of the New Jersey National Guard rolled slowly to a halt following a joint decontamination exercise with Canadian and U.S. Soldiers at Camp Wainwright, Alberta.
An unlikely scene for a professional snowboarder, but there he was: Sgt. Michael Whitehead, a chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear specialist and former national snowboard competitor.
"I was also lucky enough to have a ski resort a mile away from my house," recalled Whitehead, a native of Vernon, New Jersey. "One day I saw this guy on a wooden plank coming down the mountain, and my brother and I were like, 'That's so cool! What is that?' Then I went out and bought one."
Snowboarding, as Whitehead thought back with a smirk, was his first introduction to long hikes over rough terrain.
"We didn't have much money - my parents couldn't afford season passes or anything like that - so we would have to hike the mountain," he said. "We would duct tape our gloves together and glue our boots together. It was like an art for me. I took out my aggression, happiness, sadness; any free time I had, I went. It was my escape. It was my freedom."
As it turned out, Whitehead found snowboarding to be an art that could take him across the country.
"I started doing local competitions, getting better and better, learning more from my peers," Whitehead said. "I had a group of people and we started going place to place. We started in New Jersey, we went to New York, to Pennsylvania, then... to Vermont and New Hampshire. We started doing bigger competitions. I went to California, New Hampshire, Maine, Colorado... and then I started getting sponsorships. That's where things started getting a little easier - newer, free equipment to represent them - and then I started going on the national level, and the more time and effort I put into it, the more I succeeded."
But one day, Whitehead had an epiphany. After racing and ranking in competitions, he reflected on how he had been able to enjoy so many snow-covered slopes across the U.S. After years of racing slalom, halfpipe, boardercross, slopestyle, and big air, Whitehead put up his board and bowed out of the competitive arena.
"I embraced a moment of how lucky I am to have the freedom that I have," Whitehead recalled. "I started thinking, 'this freedom that I have is because so many men and women have sacrificed so much for this country.' I felt it was my time to give back."
That decision led him to sign a three-year contract with the New Jersey National Guard. Now in his ninth year of service, Whitehead wishes he had started sooner.
"It was probably the best decision of my life," Whitehead declared. "I get great satisfaction in trying to lead and educate. I'm blessed to realize that you've got to put your time in and do your part. I'm in for as long as I physically can take it."
Spc. Dana Betts, a computer detection systems repair specialist with the 50th Chem. Co. based in Somerset, New Jersey, attests his efforts have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated.
"Everything I know about the DED line, the M12 decontamination apparatus I learned from Sgt. Whitehead," said Betts, a physical therapy aid and kickboxing instructor in her civilian life. "He has a very good open door policy - I've been able to go straight to him and ask him questions, and I know he's going to give me a very, very thorough explanation of what each thing is. He's actually taken the time to teach me the jargon, the strategies, the SOPs, and it's not easy teaching someone who's not chem."
Betts, who is training to become a CBRN specialist, once felt overwhelmed by the idea of working a decontamination line. Now, she feels confident to fill any position at any stage of the line.
"Now, here, I'm like 'Alright!'" exclaimed Betts, native of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. "'What station do you want me at? Do you want me at the first one or the eighth one; I can do them and all the stations in between.' I've learned so much in the past two weeks than I have in the past three years."
Betts and Whitehead are just two of more than 650 U.S. Army Soldiers supporting Maple Resolve 17, the Canadian Army's premiere brigade-level validation exercise running May 14-29 at Camp Wainwright, Alberta, Canada. As part of the exercise, the U.S. Army is providing a wide array of combat and support elements. These include sustainment, psychological operations, public affairs, aviation and medical units.
"We're working with the Canadian troops - we're cross training them, they're cross training us," Whitehead said. "We're collecting their knowledge and strategic ways to decontaminate personnel. We're working side by side with them, and that's really big for us. We're all getting along great, and it's an opportunity for us to educate each other for an actual, real live event - which hopefully never occurs!"
Readiness is the U.S. Army's number one priority. Units participating in Maple Resolve 17 will sharpen individual skill sets while enhancing overall unit readiness.
"A training environment like this doesn't come along very often," Whitehead said. "We're actually pushing for it so we can train more side by side, sleep in the same tents as the Canadians, learn more about their ways and they can learn more about our ways. In case of a horrible, catastrophic event, we're all prepared for it."
Training Soldiers to react to potential disaster fills Whitehead with pride, but he strives to give back outside the Army as well.
"I work with a lot of people, and I use my leadership abilities that I've learned from the military and implement them in my day to day job," Whitehead explains. "I give back a lot of my time with big brother... teaching them to be positive... I try to slowly, delicately introduce them to the structure and discipline that I've learned from the military."
Whitehead still hits the slopes, though with less acrobatics and more focused on helping others.
"I try not to leave the ground anymore; I'm 35 now, so when I fall it hurts a lot more than when I was 12," Whitehead said with a laugh. "I'm trying to spend as much time as I can with my niece and my nephew; they're both into snowboarding as well. I have an eight-year-old nephew and a 13-year-old niece, and they're both into snowboarding."
Looking off toward the sky, a smile spread across his face.
"I've had a very amazing life," he said. "Sometimes you've got to grow up and give back. We just have to make an effort - all of us - in everything that we do."
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