U.S. Army Reserve Col. Troy Shearer holds up cards from his son Max’s class while serving in Kuwait.
Submitted photo
HANCOCK COUNTY — After more than three decades in the military and six deployments to the Middle East, Col. Troy Shearer is getting ready to hang up his camouflage.
The New Palestine resident and U.S. Army Reserve member recently returned from a 10-month tour in Kuwait. Shearer is concluding a career that’s included helping manage fuel operations during the Iraq War. He’s served as a liaison to an international joint command headquarters in Afghanistan. One of his work spaces was a former palace of Saddam Hussein’s.
While the profession has been rewarding, it has called for sacrificing time away from his family. He’s looking forward to spending more time with his loved ones as he finishes his final year at a nearby Army Reserve center.
Shearer, 48, currently with the Reserve’s 310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command in Indianapolis, grew up in Jeffersonville. He joined the Indiana National Guard at age 17 and served for four years.
“I’ve got a lineage of servers,” he said, referring to his grandfather, who was in the Navy; his father, who served during the Vietnam War; and his brother, who was also in the state National Guard.
Another motivation for signing up was the financial help it provided toward his education at Indiana University, where he joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
“It was just kind of a sense of serving,” he said of his desire to continue with the military. “My whole thought has always been — somebody served for me; so kind of a pay-it-forward — I’m serving for someone else, so someone else doesn’t have to. And I enjoy it.”
He commissioned from IU’s ROTC program in 1996 to the Army Reserve in Jeffersonville and then Evansville, working in fuel operations in both locations.
Fuel was also his focus when he started active duty as a reservist with the Third U.S. Army based in Atlanta, with which he was deployed three times from 2004 to 2007 during the Iraq War. He served as the theater petroleum officer, assisting with the management of all the fuel the U.S. military used throughout the Middle East — over 1 million gallons a day.
“The challenge is getting it right,” he said. “Fuel costs a lot of money, and nothing moves without fuel. So if you haven’t managed your commodity, be it fuel, or ammunition, or whatever, the actual war-fighter, the trigger-puller that’s on the ground, may run out of bullets, may run out of fuel, and that could cost them their life.”
Shearer recalled the moat, exotic animal-themed decor and thin marble throughout the former palace of Saddam’s in which he worked in Baghdad.
“It was a lot of show,” he said.
Later on in his career, Shearer deployed from Cincinnati to Afghanistan with a petroleum group that managed fuel testing and the number of military fuel sites needed throughout the Middle East. He served as a liaison between that group and a logistics hub in Kuwait and an international joint command headquarters in Afghanistan, serving with military counterparts from England, Germany and Belgium.
At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Shearer served as an inspector general conducting investigations and performing inspections. From there he deployed to Kuwait, where he continued those duties for units in that country as well as Afghanistan and Iraq.
After returning from that tour, Shearer was selected to attend Army War College, through which he did a fellowship at the University of Texas and studied subjects like leadership.
During his most recent 10-month deployment to Kuwait — from which he returned in early September — Shearer served as an operations officer leading an information hub.
“Anything that comes into this organization or out of this organization comes through my team,” he said. That could include instructions to a subordinate unit on performing a certain mission, like moving equipment out of Afghanistan as the military left the country.
He continues this role at the Army Reserve center in Indianapolis, where his team also oversees units’ training.
Due to his background in logistics, most of Shearer’s tours have been to Kuwait, the military’s logistics hub of the Middle East.
“Nothing moves; nothing shoots without logistics,” he said.
While proud to be part of what makes the military work, it’s also required him to be away from his family for extended periods of time.
“I can’t tell you how many birthdays I missed; I can’t tell you how many Christmases I missed,” Shearer said, adding he also missed the first steps of his youngest son, Max, now 11.
When overseas, he’d often be up late on a phone app watching stats come in from his 13-year-old son Jacob’s baseball games happening on the other side of the planet.
“Being there, being in danger, it doesn’t bother me,” Shearer said. “When I’m deployed, I got it a thousand times easier than my wife’s got it. All I have to do is focus on my mission. I’m told what to eat, I’m told where to go, I’m told what to wear, and that’s all I have to do.”
His wife, Dawn Shearer, has her own logistics challenge — managing a household and taking care of two sons by herself.
“She does a lot, and it’s hard for me to listen to her vent, because I’m a fixer, and I can’t fix it,” Troy Shearer said. “I can’t help her. That’s the biggest challenge.”
Dawn, a nurse at New Palestine Intermediate School, said coordinating rides to and from school and extracurricular activities was challenging.
“Trying to juggle that was the biggest hurdle,” she said. “Luckily friends and coaches helped out big time when I was double-booked for their games and stuff.”
The most recent deployment was the third for the couple’s youngest children.
“I got pretty good at it,” Dawn said of adapting. “You just kind of step up and do it.”
Knowing he’s providing the life he’s able to provide for his family motivated Troy Shearer to stick with his service’s challenges over the years.
“Doing this for others is a piece of it, but doing it for my family is the biggest piece,” he said.
When he looks back on his long career, one part that stands out the most is the friendships he’s forged with fellow service members.
“The sense of protection that you get from another soldier — just that family, tight-knit development that you create with other soldiers,” he said.
All of the places he’s been able to see are a close second. Along with Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq, he’s also been to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Japan. He was stationed in Mountain View, California, as well.
Dawn has enjoyed living across the country, too.
“I’m not going to miss the deployments,” she said. “I’m super excited about that. I’m a little sad the adventure of moving does kind of end. We’ve been in some really cool places, so I’m going to miss that part of it.”
Part of what’s prompting his decision to retire is no longer being in the physical condition he was in when he started in the military.
“I’ve always said once I can’t do the things that’s required of a soldier, I’m done,” he said.
He also wants to let their two kids still at home grow up in one place for a change.
Dawn said Jacob was in the fifth grade when they arrived in New Palestine in 2018, and he was starting at his fifth school.
“Quite a few moves,” she said. “So I’m really excited about getting to stay in New Pal and letting them finish high school. That’s pretty exciting for us. We really like New Pal. We like the small-community feel, and we’re meeting a lot of great people.”
Troy Shearer recently submitted his retirement paperwork, initiating his final year of service. By the time he’s officially done in November 2022, he’ll have a total of 32 years.
As for what he’ll do next, he’s not quite sure.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there,” he said. “What I’ll probably do is just relax and enjoy the no stress, enjoy my family, allow them to make some decisions.”
