MAJ(R) Darrell C. Baughn I was born on 29 November, 1963 in Vicksburg, MS to Talmadge and Betty Baughn and we moved to Memphis, Nashville, and then settled in Jackson, MS. I have basically received all my early education in Jackson, MS in the public school system. I also attended church at Midway Baptist Church. I went through school with fairly good grades and graduated third in my class from Provine High School in a class of 200. I went on to obtain a liberal arts education with an emphasis in English at Hinds Community College and then Belhaven College. I contemplated going to seminary but everything did not fall into place so I went to the University of Alabama and obtained an MA in English and an ABD/PHD in English. I also earned a JD in law at the University of Alabama. Graduate school taught me how to question things, but law school taught me to be critical in my analysis. After law school, I taught English for a while at Belhaven College and Hinds Community College while I waited to see if I had passed the Mississippi Bar exam. After I passed the bar, I started working at the Mississippi Department of Human Services in the Division of Child Support Enforcement. Actually, I still work there and am on leave under the Uniform Soldiers Employment and Reemployment Rights Act while I am serving my AGR tour. Because I wanted to do something different and because I wanted to serve my country, I joined the United States Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps on April 1, 2003. Joining the Army reserve was one of the best decisions I have ever made; however, it did not come without sacrifices. I served in Iraq for a year with the 1st COSCOM (now 1st Sustainment) and provided legal assistance to Soldiers in combat. One of the rewarding experiences during this time was assisting over 900 Soldiers with obtaining their citizenship. After I returned from Iraq, I served in Washington DC for a year at OJAG as a career manager. I started my current assignment as the Deputy Staff Judge Advocate for the 412th ENCOM on 1 April 2007. In the few short months I have been in the AGR program, I have learned a great deal more about how the Army operates and how to better serve as a judge advocate. For example, I was sent to Korea to assist with UFL and with operational law and contract law. My goal in this class is to improve my knowledge of the Army and its various operations so I can more effectively serve as a judge advocate in my command. I routinely have to brief the Chief of Staff and the Commander on legal issues, and so I hope to improve my communication skills. Also, our unit has recently acquired three new brigades, and I expect this class will greatly assist me in interacting and coordinating with these units. I want to encourage units under my command headquarters to find and develop “pockets of competence” and to use these specialized skill groups to achieve our goals. Lastly, in my current position, I receive questions each day that are essentially problems and I would like to better learn the technical vocabulary and methodologies used so that as I develop legal solutions to my commander’s problems/issues, I can couch these solutions in the proper Army vernacular and better understand how my proposed solution fits into the larger structure of the Army’s primary purposes and goals. After I deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 were I worked on fiscal law among many other arears of the law, I returned to planet Earth and worked for a while in Alexandria, Virginia with a terrible job with the Trial Defense Service where I mostly wiped the proverbial buttocks of other more important judge advocates and did not do real legal work. I injured my back in Afghanistan and received a medical retirement, screwing me out of any real Army retirement. After searching for over a year, I landed a job with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office at the Mississippi Department of Corrections and after four years the newly elected AG fired me for not being in her sorority and then I worked for over a year for the dubious Rob Wells doing child support where I was underpaid, undervalued, and under-undered. While I have a part-time job teaching at Belhaven where I teach English and some business classes from a Christian perspective, I also work for companies like Consilio or Elevate doing sporadic document review work since I cannot find a federal job where I can work from home. I had a stroke at work with the AG’s office and was turned out to pasture for having lost eyesight in my left peripheral vision. My wish would be that I could live my remaining years writing and publishing books on Amazon, but I find that that the only way to find my books therein is by looking up my own name which is a self-defeating exercise in anarchy and yet I still write poetry and self-help books and other things in the hope and dream and desire that one day or night some or one might prove useful to as least one person.Read more about this authorRead less about this author