Lt. Col. Gregory M. Woodward, United States Marines

In civilian life, Greg Woodward is the executive director of a retirement community in Greensboro, N.C. But for the past year and a half, Lt. Col. Woodward, a Marine reservist and a 1981 Coastal graduate, has helped fight the war on terrorism in Africa and in Iraq, where he was based near Fallujah during the first round of heavy fighting there in April 2004.

Speaking from his post in Iraq, Woodward emphasized the importance of stabilizing the country. “This part of the operation is much more difficult than the initial combat operation,” he said. “Toppling the regime was much simpler than managing a war of insurgency. But what we’re doing now is critically important. The focus is not on killing bad guys but on rebuilding the infrastructure, restoring power and water systems, training Iraqi security forces and helping town councils here to govern themselves.”

On the telephone from Fallujah, Woodward reminisced about his college days. He was a management major at Coastal, the first in his immediate family to attend college, and he was a devoted member of Coastal’s Rugby Club. Two of his business professors were particularly influential. “Dr. Boyles had a tremendous effect on me, just in terms of how to manage my own personal finances. He really drove home how time and money can work together.” Woodward also has fond memories of Jim Eason’s courses. “He would walk into class and say, ‘Open your hymnals.’ For a big man he was really light on his feet in front of that chalkboard. He really loved what he was doing.”

Woodward also asserts, with some irony, that the courses he was least interested in and made the worst grades in (English) have been just as useful to him, both as a businessman and a Marine officer, as any business course he ever took. “The English classes I took under Miss Lester taught me communications skills that have been vital to me, like how to write reports and properly document information.”

Woodward in front of one of Saddam Hussein's palaces on the Euphrates River.

On the day he graduated from Coastal in 1981, Woodward, along with Mark Singleton, was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer. After graduation, he spent most of his three-year hitch in officer’s school at Quantico, Va., and at Camp Lejeune. He went off active duty after his tour and accepted a position with Aramark Corp., working for 12 years managing health care support services for hospitals. He has been at the retirement community in Greensboro since 1988.

A lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves, Woodward was called up in January 2003 to Camp Lejeune and two months later was sent to Djibouti, a city on the Horn of Africa near Somalia, where his unit’s mission was to detect and prevent terrorist group activity in the region. “It’s a very open area, close to Somalia and Ethiopia, which are havens for terrorists.” In September 2003 he was back at Camp Lejeune, where he was stationed until ordered to Iraq in February 2004.

“One of the difficult things about being in Iraq is separation from family,” he says. He and his wife Paige have three children—Alex, 17, Emily, 14, and Elizabeth, 13. He has had to miss his daughters’ swim meets and his son Alex leading his high school tennis team to the state championship. He missed Alex’s high school graduation in May, and he didn’t get to see him off to college—to UNC Chapel Hill on Naval ROTC scholarship.

“When you spend a year away from an active family during such formative years, you are going to miss some milestones. That’s O.K. I am truly privileged to be here, and more than a little humbled by the performance of these fine young Americans I serve with.”

Woodward returned to the U.S. in October 2004.