Retired soldier continues his service by helping fellow veterans and community

When he was a kid, retired U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Daniel Kalagian admired actor John Wayne’s war movies and played army with his friends. He never had any sudden epiphany about his future careers. He just knew.

“I knew two things: I was going to join the Army, and I was going to be a cop,” Kalagian said. “I was able to successfully complete both careers.”

And so began Kalagian’s 20 years of service in the Army, for which he served in Germany, North Carolina, Iraq and Cuba.

Now retired, Kalagian volunteers as a platoon leader with The Mission Continues, a nonprofit organization that helps veterans readjust to civilian life by helping them find new missions to serve their community.

“We’re helping our veterans get that camaraderie that we often miss when we leave service and feel good about doing something for (their) community and continuing that sense of volunteerism by attacking community problems,” said Kalagian, an Ocoee resident. 

“We’re not all broken; we don’t all have PTSD. Some of us really struggle, some of us have some severe disabilities, but we can all get out there and contribute.”

YOU’RE ALWAYS YELLOW

Kalagian’s first tour of duty was in 1982, when he was deployed to Germany for 18 months with the 556th Military Police Company. He worked at Siegelsbach Army Depot, a former military base that stores nuclear weapons performing what he colloquially terms “tower rat duty.” Kalagian remembers working long shifts because much of the military personnel was arrested for smoking hash there shortly before he arrived.

Once his initial enlistment in the Army came to an end in 1985, Kalagian made a beeline for his next career goal and solved cases as a police detective for 24 years in his hometown at Bridgeport Police Department. His favorite case and the highlight of his police career, he said, was solving a case involving a burglary ring that called itself the Snow Bandits. The case had been open for three years, but he and his partner solved it in only four months.

“I did homicides, crime scenes, auto theft, burglary; you name it, I investigated it,” Kalagian said. “My favorite was auto theft. I loved running after bad guys. (I) hated car chases, but I loved running after bad guys.”

After 9/11, at age 40, he re-enlisted in the Army. In 2002, he was mobilized in North Carolina to work in port security until 2004. While there, he met now-retired Sgt. 1st Class Priscilla Kalagian — his wife.

After North Carolina, Kalagian served as a military police instructor from 2004 until 2008 in New York. In 2008, he was deployed to Iraq with the 306th Military Police Battalion, and stationed at Camp Bucca, a detention facility. His duties there included transferring detainees to other facilities around Iraq. 

“It was interesting, because every time we’d take off, the bad guys would pray for us to crash,” Kalagian said.

The most challenging aspects of his deployment in Iraq were the extreme heat, dealing with the constant threat of attacks and being separated from his family.

“With our wars, it’s a little better, because we have the Internet, Skype and messaging on Facebook,” Kalagian said. “So you get a little more contact with your family, but you (still) miss a lot of important things.”

For his last deployment, he served nine months as a senior leader from 2012 to 2013 at Guantanamo Bay.

“That was harder than Iraq; I can’t talk much about what my mission was there,” Kalagian said. “We were under a microscope at the highest level. If one of those prisoners or detainees there cut his finger, we would have to report it. So every little detail was documented. ... It was hard on my troops.”

The stress of being in a war zone and working as a police officer have left their impressions. Even though he retired in June 2015, Kalagian still is living in what he calls “yellow”  mode. 

“You’re always hyper-vigilant while you’re there; you have to always have situational awareness,” he said. “Normal people are green, just going about their life and everything is la-dee-da and beautiful, right? As a soldier in a war zone, you’re always yellow, just like alert, hyper-alert.”

NEXT STEP?

Kalagian credits a memory of a friend who committed suicide after leaving Guantanamo Bay as one of the experiences that motivates his desire to volunteer in The Mission Continues.

“If I can do something in my retired life to save just one veteran from thinking about killing themselves today, I’m going to do everything I can to do something,” Kalagian said.

Now 53, Kalagian is deciding his next move. 

“I’m one of the lucky people in the world because I was able to successfully complete two career goals, but now I’ve got to figure out what I want to do when I grow up,” Kalagian said.

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Contact Gabby Baquero at [email protected]