On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, invaded the small country of Kuwait, located on the Persian Gulf. The United States began sending troops to Saudi Arabia in an operation called Desert Shield. On Wednesday, January 16, 1991 at about 6:00 P.M. EST, after an ultimatum by President George Bush for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait, the United States and an international military force launched an air war against Iraq which was then named Desert Storm.
Stacy Lynn Jalowitz-Welter, the youngest of three girls, was born to Jim and Sandy Jalowitz on July 25, 1971 in Hayward, Wisconsin. She graduated from Hayward High School in 1989. She participated in various sports while in high school--volleyball, basketball, softball, and a hockey cheerleader. Both her sisters Kim (Thalacker) and Sue (Drabek) were married when operation Desert Shield began.
On December 28, 1988, Stacy enlisted in the Army National Guard, joining her sister Sue who had joined the National Guard in 1986. From July 1989 until March 1990, Stacy was in Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and then in Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Sam, Houston, Texas. Stacy enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in the fall of 1990. While attending Laurel Johnson's freshman English 110 class, Stacy received a message to call her unit. She was told that her unit was on alert. The date was November 15, 1990. Two days later, Stacy received a call that her unit was activated.
Stacy was a Pharmacy Technician in the l3th Evacuation Hospital (EVAC). She reported to the Armory in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin on November 21 and flew to Fort Bullis, Texas on December 5, 1990 for training. On January 11, 1991 Stacy and her unit, including her sister Sue, flew to Saudi Arabia, landing there two days later after layovers in New York and Germany. Initially, Stacy and Sue lived in the apartment complex of the U.S. Air Base in Dhahran, where she could see the Persian Gulf from her apartment on the seventh floor. From there, the unit took Chinook helicopters and then transferred to buses and trucks to get to their hospital site in the desert, twenty miles south of the Iraq border, where they remained for the following three months. On April 5, Stacy and other soldiers drove to Kuwait City for a day trip. On April 26, 1991, Stacy and her unit flew home after a memorable three and a half months in Saudi Arabia, where she experienced sand storms, observing wild camel in the desert, and the terrors of war, including SCUD missile alerts at all hours, the interception of SCUDs by patriot missiles, tending to casualties, and guarding prisoners-of-war.
Upon her return home, Stacy returned to UWEC and completed her education, receiving a BA in Accounting and Business Administration in May 1995. While a student at UWEC, Stacy participated in the Student Accounting Society and the Veterans Club. On August 19, 1995 Stacy married John Welter. Stacy presently works as a Client Service Analyst for Donnelly Marketing in Marshfield, Wisconsin.
