CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait — Sgt. 1st Class Terrence T. Conyers is ready to level up.
The financial management technician, currently attached to the Kaiserslautern, Germany, based 266th Finance Support Center here, said that while he loves being a noncommissioned officer he feels confident that he can better serve the Army as a warrant officer.
The 266th FISC has been deployed here since June, and supports the overall mission of the 1st Theater Sustainment Command—the unit responsible for sustainment operations throughout the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.
“I’m just ready to try a new road,” the Manning, South Carolina, native said. “Within the last six to 12 months I’ve been having a lot of warrant officers approach me about the program, and I’ve always thought about it in the back of my head, but I think I needed that extra push to know that ‘hey, maybe there is a lane for you in that cohort.’”
The sergeant first class, 34, took a few moments away from his duties as the senior finance operations advisor to talk about why he serves, one of the challenges he overcame in his close to 15 years of service, and who his biggest fans are.
SPIES and FRIES
Conyers can pinpoint the childhood-era catalyst that led him to enlist in the Army.
The Soldier was visiting his cousin, Kevin Conyers, over the summer at Fort Story, Virginia. Kevin, who has since retired from the Army, was stationed there serving as an Army combat medic.
“I remember the specific day because they were conducting SPIES and FRIES training,” Conyers said. “I saw the personnel hanging from the helicopter, the Black Hawk, and I just thought it was so cool.”
SPIES and FRIES refers to Fast Rope Infiltration and Extraction and Special Patrol Insertion and Exfiltration, techniques that allow Soldiers to infiltrate or leave locations unsuitable for helicopters to land due to obstacles or vegetation.
“As I grew up throughout the years I could always remember that image of the guys hanging from the helicopter,” Conyers said. “So when I enlisted the first thing I kept asking my recruiter was can you send me somewhere where I can hang from a helicopter—she said, ‘oh, you’re talking about air assault,’ and I said ‘yeah, I think that’s it’—and … I was able to get Fort Campbell and I was able to get air assault qualified.”
The sergeant first class enlisted on Nov. 9, 2006, as a petroleum supply specialist. He wanted to be a financial management technician then but also wanted to be on the “first thing smoking” out of his hometown.
Conyers said his mother, Juanita Conyers, did not believe him no matter how many times he told her that he was leaving his employment as a brick mason to join the Army.
“She was like, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’” he said about his mother, who passed away in 2018. “The recruiter finally came up and the tears just started falling—she knew it was real then, her baby was leaving.”
Fortunately, Conyers did not have far to travel. The Soldier attended basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. It was an ideal location because his family only had to drive an hour to visit him on family day and for his graduation.
“Not only that, I was able to meet some players from the University of South Carolina football team— I’m a big Gamecock fan—so that was a big plus as well,” the sergeant first class said.
Conyers attended advanced individual training at Fort Lee, Virginia, and traveled to Fort Stewart, Georgia, to serve at his first duty station. His cousin—who was also a big influence on his decision to serve—was stationed there.
“Growing up, my cousin, which was more like a brother figure to me, he was the first generation military … in our family,” Conyers said. “Spending time with him during the summertime and getting to go to different states and being a part of that, I saw the quality of life for him and his family as well and I grew to love that.”
While he was serving in his first unit, Conyers said he learned a hard lesson that has served him well throughout the rest of his career.
The Soldier was given an Article 15, a punishment commanders can initiate for incidents of minor misconduct.
Conyers received the punishment for failing to report. The sergeant first class said he was devastated, and he reached out to his cousin for counsel.
“He explained to me how my decisions can also put my leaders and their careers at risk,” Conyers said. “Once I was able to understand that I was like, ‘okay, I’m being selfish at this point, I need to tighten up, remember why I came in the military and drive forward.’ You can’t be selfish in the military, you can’t.”
Conyers said the experience taught him about resilience and leadership.
“I had a big support system behind me, I had great leadership,” he said. “The same people that gave me the Article 15 were also the same people pushing me to bounce back and strive forward. To this day I’m still connected with my commander and my first sergeant from that unit.”
‘Reason to keep moving forward’
Conyers stayed the course and continued to progress in the Army, despite the setback. In 2013 he switched fields and became a financial management technician. From Fort Stewart he deployed here for a year, followed by tours at Fort Carson, Colorado, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Vicenza, Italy, and Baumholder, Germany.
He has served in combat three times in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, and he supported the Army’s response to the Ebola crisis on the continent of Africa in 2015.
“I never thought that I would have made it outside of the United States,” Conyers said about the opportunities the military has afforded him.
Conyers said he would not have made it this far without the support of his biggest fan, his sister, Tiffany Hibbler.
“She was always there for graduations, for promotion ceremonies, if I was having a bad day no matter what time it was I could call her and she would prop me up--she’d say, ‘remember why you came in,’” he said. “And those talks, those sit-downs, definitely helped keep my drive going for the military.”
The sergeant first class said his 2-year-old daughter, Chloe, has now officially taken over his sister’s role as his cheerleader.
“Every morning I’ll have a WhatsApp message, ‘good morning dada I love you, I miss you,’ so every morning I wake up I look forward to seeing those videos,” Conyers said. “And if I don’t have one maybe she’s waiting on dada to send her one, so I’ll send her a video and then wait about ten minutes [and] the 2-year-old girl knows how to call me
The sergeant first class said he and his wife, Johanna, are raising Chloe to be bilingual in German and English, so Chloe communicates with him in each language.
The sergeant first class has completed his interviews for his packet and will find out if he is selected to become a warrant officer in January 2021, right before the 266th FISC is slated to redeploy to Germany.
Until then, Conyers said he will continue his duties here and look forward to receiving daily messages from his daughter.
“Now I had a real reason to keep moving forward, and I’m not going to say a real reason for living, but it definitely enhanced my reason for living,” he said.
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