Honoring Our Heroes

First Sergeant Robert Frederick Goorley: Age 79

Frist Sergeant (1SG) Robert Frederick Goorley served 32.5 years in the U.S. Military including one year of duty in the Navy Reserve, two years of active duty in the Navy and 26.5 years in the Army National Guard Special Forces (18Z) which are elite units that perform dangerous missions around the world. Members of Special Forces are experts in guerilla warfare and training foreign resistance forces. His Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) was Special Forces (1800). 1SG Goorley is a highly decorated soldier. He received the following medals, awards and citations: Army Achievement Medal (3rd award), Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal (5th award), Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal (3rd award), Vietnam Service Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal (2nd award), Armed Forces Reserve Medal with “M” Device, Noncommissioned Officer’s Professional Development Ribbon with Numeral 3, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Bar, Army Reserve Components Overseas Training Ribbon (5th award), Parachutist Badge, Pathfinder Badge and Special Forces Tab.

1SG Goorley was born December 23, 1945 to his parents, Dr John T. Goorley and Ethel Goorley in Columbus, Ohio. His father had a Ph.D. in Pharmacy. 1Sg Goorley was reared for 10 years in Argentina where his father worked in pharmacy research with Johnson and Johnson, an American multinational pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technologies corporation. There he began to learn the Spanish language which he would later use in his military service in the Special Forces. The family moved to Ada, Ohio, for two years. His father then taught at Northeast LA College in Monroe, LA., where he graduated from Neville High School in 1963.

Because of many generations of his family’s extensive service in the U.S. military going back to the Revolutionary War including his father who served as a research Ph.D. at Walter Reed Hospital during WWII where he created a medication for use in treating wounds infected by bacteria, 1SG Goorley early on had a strong desire to join America’s military. 1SF Goorley voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve 30,1963 at Monroe, LA, completed Boot Camp at the Naval Base San Diego, CA, and completed the one year of Navy Reserve at his home in LA. He then completed two years of active Navy service with six months of training as a fire control technician followed by 1.5 years working as an optical rangefinder on the main battery fire control on the USS Brush DD-745 destroyer whose home port was Long Beach, CA. This Vietnam service resulted in serious health issues years later. He then returned home to LA, used the G.I. Bill and graduated with a B.S. Degree in Oriental History from LA Tech.

After his military service in the Navy Reserve, 1SG Goorley worked for Olin Kraf Paper Company in West Monroe, LA, in sales for five years. Afterwards, he worked for other paper companies including Crown Zellerbach Paper Company for four years working in sales and traveling throughout the southeast U.S.A. He then worked full time for an automobile painting company, Ultracolor in Birmingham, AL, for 10 years.

In October 1980, 1SG Goorley resumed his military service by going into the Army National Guard training with Special Forces. He also worked between the assignments with the military. He worked with UltraColor 11 years helping the company set up businesses throughout AL. He was attached to Special Forces Regional Commands, the European Theater for Special Operations Commands and Special Operations South working in Central and South America. He also served in the Middle East for four years, and he went to serve with the Special Operations Detachment South headquartered in Jackson, MS. This Special Unit served in South and Central America and the Middle East. He deployed to Djibouti, a country in the Horn of Africa bordered by Somalia where his job was building the base structures for the base for six months. He returned to the U.S.A. serving at the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) at Mac Dill Air Force Base, Tampa, FL. From there, he served at CENTCOM (FWD) in the Middle East during the Global War on Terror. He then worked six months as a liaison with Joint Operational Command, Special Operations LNO at Doha, Qatar, on the Persian Gulf. He retired from all military service in 2006, and he returned to the U.S.A. to Montgomery first as a program manager with Torres, AES, a security, program and language services company with military contracts supplying interpreters in Afghanistan and Iraq for five years and setting up guards at the Embassy and at apartments for Embassy personnel in Brundi, Africa. He then became project manager serving 12 Army bases in Iraq and again to Afghanistan working with interpreters. He also served as the project manager setting up and training local guards of the embassies at Amman, Jordan, and at Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1SG Goorley retired from all full time employment in 2014.

Since his retirement, 1SG Goorley has been involved with a hurricane relief company supplying food and water. He and his wife, Laurice, have been married 29 years. He belongs to the Disabled American Veterans.

ISG Goorley’s conclusions about what serving in the U.S. Military means to him are: “It was a family tradition, and it was important to keep that. I was just a simple soldier.”

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