Veterans Among Us: James Watson

To extend the celebration of Veterans Day, we are featuring our employees who had military careers prior to joining LG&E and KU.

Army Reserve Major James Watson, CIP compliance/controls specialist in Generation Services, began his military career after graduating high school. Years after, he had mixed feelings when he left the military, but later returned to the Army to attend Officer Candidate School in 2005. He was getting ready to leave active duty at Fort Knox in 2014 when he applied to LG&E and KU.

Tell us about your different roles in the Army.
After high school, I enlisted and I served four years as an enlisted soldier. I decided I wanted to get out and go to college to finish my degree. I was working as an IT administrator for a company in Denver, Colorado when I considered applying to become an officer in the Army. I applied to Officer Candidate School, got selected, and decided to go back into the Army in 2005 to attend OCS. I’ve served in Field Artillery and Signal Corps roles.

You were deployed a couple of times. What were the experiences like?
When I was a lieutenant, I served in the Army’s Field Artillery branch. I had the chance to serve in Iraq for 15 months and was one of the lucky Field Artillery officers who actually fired rockets over there. I was a Fire Direction officer in one of the few organizations that fired GPS-guided Multi-launch Rocket Systems in combat. We conducted several precision fire missions into places like Sadr City, Baghdad and Mosul targeting Al-Qaida in Iraq cells and firing rockets in support of troops in contact.

Shortly after the Iraq deployment, I transferred into the Signal Corps, which is essentially the IT department of the Army. We are responsible for tactical radio communications, satellite communications, information assurance, network defense and IT services.

I first deployed to Afghanistan, near Farah, as a Battalion Communications officer ensuring personnel on patrols and outlying contingency operating posts were trained and equipped to communicate with each other, with combat support units and back to the higher headquarters. When I returned, I attended another military school for information systems management, which is a functional area of the Signal Corps. I deployed again to FOB Apache, Afghanistan for five months as the Brigade Signal officer in 2013.

Both deployments to Afghanistan were more exciting but more challenging than Iraq due to the austerity of the land and fewer communication resources available, but they were all equally difficult spending time away from my family, missing holidays, birthdays and anniversaries.

How is your service in the military similar to what you’re doing with LG&E and KU?
I felt my job in the military was important because I was responsible for all aspects of data and voice communication for more than 4,000 soldiers on a Brigade Combat Team scattered across Afghanistan. I was also directly responsible for the health and well-being of several of the troops who worked in my units and sections during deployments. Likewise, working for LG&E and KU is purposeful. Energy is obviously very important in our daily lives. There are many similar jobs in different industries, but few are as purposeful as working to provide reliable energy to business and residential customers.