Steve Harmon has been learning the ropes of his new responsibilities with the Kansas Army National Guard for a couple of weeks now, but his formal promotion came Sunday afternoon during a ceremony in Topeka.
The longtime Emporian had been serving as the Kansas Army National Guard’s 69th Troop Command senior enlisted advisor, essentially serving the Guard at the brigade level. Now he’s the command sergeant major and senior enlisted advisor for the Kansas Army National Guard as a whole. Harmon’s role now is representing the Army National Guard’s mission of supporting so-called commander’s intent, whether it be the President or Governor.
Harmon enlisted in 1986 and since then has had numerous roles and deployments, including overseas deployments to — and leadership roles in — Afghanistan and Kuwait.
Harmon’s focus will be on professional development, readiness, training, morale and welfare. He says Army National Guard units are across Kansas serving residents after major weather incidents. It’s also working with K-12 schools on developing values and colleges and universities with training procedures as it builds stronger community leaders.
Harmon says the overall mission changed after Sept. 11, 2001, from being a strategic reserve unit to being an operations reserve, and every four years soldiers can expect to be involved in a federal mission anywhere in the world. Kansas National Guard soldiers are typically in two or three countries at a time.
