In Service

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Richard Midkiff, of Hot Springs, with Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 379th Regimen, Arkadelphia, was recently awarded a Meritorious Service Medal for his work with Operation Cold Steel II, hosted by the 79th Theater Sustainment Command at Fort Hunter Liggett, Calif.

Operation Cold Steel is the U.S. Army Reserve's crew-served weapons qualification and validation exercise to ensure America's Army Reserve units and soldiers are trained and ready to deploy on short-notice as part of Ready Force X and bring combat-ready and lethal firepower in support of the Army and our joint partners anywhere in the world.

Midkiff, chalk liaison noncommissioned officer, is the go-to for soldiers coming to train on crew-served weapons. As a chalk NCO, Midkiff ensures soldiers arrive as well as assisting them with the turn-in and cleaning of issued gear.

Midkiff's civilian career, and military profession, are complete opposites, Midkiff said in a release. As a citizen-soldier he is a police officer and a professor, which gives him an appreciation, while in his military uniform, for the young soldiers, whom he calls the cream of the crop.

Midkiff is a deputy with the Garland County Sheriff's Department and a law professor at the College of the Ouachitas in Malvern.

"Being a police officer, I deal with inmates and criminals, and I go from that to the cream of the crop, which is the United States military," Midkiff said. "These young soldiers are here training to go fight, and they know that some of them might come back with a flag draped over them; which is something that at my other job they never think about, they are thinking about their next drug fix or the next place they're going to rob. So, this is the cream of the crop. This is America's best."

Midkiff, who graduated with his second master's degree, May 13, 2017, from Liberty University, Lynchburg, Va., said when he first joined the military at 17, he had little to no education.

"I came in the military with little education, with a ninth-grade education," he said. "So now, here, years later, I'm working on my doctorate."

According to the award recommendation form for the MSM, Midkiff "executed an instrumental part of the largest gunnery exercise in the history of the Army Reserve, coordinated the use of the arms room with a value of over $10 million for the entire TF TRIAD, maintained overall responsibility, care and welfare of eight chalks with 42 personnel per chalk throughout the entire exercise, and provided continuity to the TF TRIAD LNO program and established best practices such as driver's training and equipment turn in processes that will serve as a standard operating procedure for future operations."