Army Reserve

Peter Paul Sokas, a retired Social Security analyst and Army Reserve officer, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 13 at St. Agnes Hospital. The Catonsville resident was 89. Born in Philadelphia, he helped support his family there from the age of 7 by selling newspapers outside the Fidelity Trust Building. Family members said that over the next 16 years, his newsstand grew until he became known throughout the area as "Pete the Fidelity." A Philadelphia Public Ledger article about Mr. Sokas in 1939 noted that he had earned his undergraduate tuition for the University of Pennsylvania from the newsstand.

She was on her way to the food court, still deciding between a sandwich and a slice of pizza for dinner, when Sabaheta Alek-Finkelman spotted the men and women in uniform. "Would you like to record a shout-out to the troops overseas?" asked Army Spc. Nicholas Lomison, 19, in his friendliest salesman's voice. "It's free, you know. " Alek-Finkelman didn't hesitate. "Hello, military," she said into a camera and microphone set up near the Chili's Too at the Arundel Mills mall.

Though its home and mission have changed over the years, "the 195th" has served honorably as a unit of the U.S. Army or Active Reserve for more than 50 years.The 195th, which is to be inactivated at Westminster tomorrow, was born in July 1942 at Fort Jackson, S.C. As the 195th Ordnance Company, it was sent to Germany during World War II and remained there until October 1945.During the period from 1945 to 1959, the unit served in active reserve or reserve status until it was once again activated in June 1959.

N one are so old, Thoreau once wrote, as those who have outlived their enthusiasms. By that standard, Sgt. Maj. Raymond Moran, the most chronologically advanced recruiter in the Army Reserve, might well also be its most youthful. "This isn't work; it's a labor of love," says Moran, a beloved figure at Fort Meade who is embarking on his 60th year of doing what he loves most: finding prospects for the Army, then putting his cheerful personality to work guiding their careers.

Howard H. Bosley, a retired Goodyear Tire manager who had been active in the Army Reserve, died of respiratory failure Wednesday at York Hospital in York, Pa. The former Owings Mills resident was 78. Born in Upperco, Mr. Bosley was a 1946 Towson High School graduate and earned a degree in agriculture and economics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He joined the Army in 1952 and served as an instructor at the U.S. Army Engineer School. He remained active in the reserves for many years.

During the early 1950s, the U.S. Army's 2053rd Reception Battalion processed nearly 600,000 soldiers."It'd been around for ages -- it gave these guys their first Army haircut and told them how to salute -- but nobody could tell me anything about it," said Keith Karas of Cockeysville, an Army Reserve drill sergeant and a veteran of the Baltimore-based 2053rd.After five years of research, Sergeant Karas has boxes of documents about the history of the unit. Now, it's really history. Next week, the Department of Defense will put the Reserve unit on "inactive" status as the shrinking of America's military continues.

WASHINGTON - A senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that it was "deeply disturbing" that the head of the Army Reserve fears his force is reaching the breaking point due to the strains of overseas deployments and outdated personnel policies. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and a one-time officer with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, was reacting to a memo from Lt. Gen. James R. "Ron" Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, that appeared Tuesday in The Sun. Helmly wrote in the Dec. 20 memo to Army leaders that the 200,000-soldier Army Reserve was "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken force.

PHOENIX -- Steve May knew from the time he was in his early teens that he wanted to be a politician, specifically a conservative Republican politician. He carefully built his life, he says, to shape an attractive resume, from his decision to enter ROTC in college and then serve as an Army officer to his efforts at building a track record as a small-business man.It worked. May served with distinction as a lieutenant on active duty in the Army and then entered the Reserve, and last November he was elected to the state Legislature, to represent the affluent, conservative district where he had grown up.Everything seemed to be going just right until last winter, when the usually affable and measured 27-year-old bitterly spoke his mind in the Arizona House, this time not as a Republican, a Mormon or a soldier, but as a gay man.May denounced an ultimately failed bill that would have barred the use of public funds to pay for health benefits of same-sex partners, and also attacked the legislation's conservative sponsor, Rep. Karen S. Johnson, a fellow Republican who had vigorously attacked homosexuality as immoral.

N one are so old, Thoreau once wrote, as those who have outlived their enthusiasms. By that standard, Sgt. Maj. Raymond Moran, the most chronologically advanced recruiter in the Army Reserve, might well also be its most youthful. "This isn't work; it's a labor of love," says Moran, a beloved figure at Fort Meade who is embarking on his 60th year of doing what he loves most: finding prospects for the Army, then putting his cheerful personality to work guiding their careers.

WASHINGTON - The chief of the Army Reserve warned yesterday that at the current pace of operations in places like Afghanistan and Iraq the Army faces a serious risk of running out of crucial specialists in the reserves who can be called up for active duty. The remarks by the officer, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, throw a spotlight on the military's existing mobilization authority, under which reserve and National Guard personnel can be summoned to active duty for no more than a total of 24 months, unless they volunteer to extend their tours.

A 43-year-old Baltimore man who joined the Army Reserve just shy of the cutoff date for enlisting and was deployed to Afghanistan two weeks ago was killed there Friday in a roadside bombing, his family said. Spc. Christopher James Coffland had spent his life counseling, coaching, traveling, and studying people and cultures, at one point pursuing anthropology graduate work that took him to Gabon, Africa. A month before he turned 42, the enlistment age limit, he signed up to become an Army intelligence specialist, relatives said.

In the past week, the Eutsler family has celebrated a year's worth of holidays. They decorated a Christmas tree, nestled Easter eggs in their garden and cooked a full Thanksgiving feast. They hung decorations for Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day alongside birthday banners. And the boys - ages 3 and 5 - gave their dad a present for each occasion they were celebrating. "I wanted Jeff to have every holiday he'll miss," Lori Eutsler said tearfully. "We crammed a lot into one week." Her husband, Jeff Eutsler, is a captain in the Army Reserve's 1398th Deployment Support Brigade - a transportation unit that left yesterday for a month of training in Indiana before beginning a yearlong deployment to Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Howard H. Bosley, a retired Goodyear Tire manager who had been active in the Army Reserve, died of respiratory failure Wednesday at York Hospital in York, Pa. The former Owings Mills resident was 78. Born in Upperco, Mr. Bosley was a 1946 Towson High School graduate and earned a degree in agriculture and economics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He joined the Army in 1952 and served as an instructor at the U.S. Army Engineer School. He remained active in the reserves for many years.

Command Sgt. Maj. Michele S. Jones set up a chair yesterday morning in the middle of the classroom at the Sheridan Army Reserve Center in Northwest Baltimore. Surrounded by enlisted leaders in the Army Reserve's 80th Division, she slid her body under the chair and demonstrated: "Let's say you're a solider and you're a mechanic and you need to get under this Humvee. If you're not physically fit, you may not be able to fit under the vehicle." Jones, a Randallstown native and the highest-ranking female enlisted soldier in the Army, said many reservists ask her why they have to take physical fitness tests if they can do their jobs without passing them.

Peter Paul Sokas, a retired Social Security analyst and Army Reserve officer, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 13 at St. Agnes Hospital. The Catonsville resident was 89. Born in Philadelphia, he helped support his family there from the age of 7 by selling newspapers outside the Fidelity Trust Building. Family members said that over the next 16 years, his newsstand grew until he became known throughout the area as "Pete the Fidelity." A Philadelphia Public Ledger article about Mr. Sokas in 1939 noted that he had earned his undergraduate tuition for the University of Pennsylvania from the newsstand.