SERGEANT ERIC ABEL

SERGEANT ERIC ABEL

Reported By RET B.Lambert October 7, 2020

Sergeant Eric Abel joined the 3rd Infantry Division Realism Unit on April 8th, 2020 where he was first assigned to Second Squad, First Platoon, Alpha Company. Sergeant Eric Abel is currently the Squad Leader of Third Squad, First Platoon, Alpha Company.

Throughout his time here he has shown a very strong passion for our unit, dedication, patriotism, valor, fidelity and professional excellence. He shows these while leading a Weapons Squad to showing excellence several DMOS's (PAO/FIG). In view of these qualities, his demonstrated leadership potential, and dedicated service, Sergeant Eric Abel has been award the Soldiers Medal and selected as this Soldier of the Quarterz

Soldiers Medal

Tell us a little about yourself.

Hey, my name is Eric. I’m 29 and just a rural town guy from central Wisconsin. I like to hang out with my friends, both in and out of the Unit, grab a few drinks at the bar (trickier now with Rona), and read a good book or watch a good show or movie. Video games have been a hobby / passion of mine since I was young. Started out on the grand ole’ Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). As the years passed and systems got better, we upgraded to the n64, xbox, xbox 360, and now i mostly game on my xbox one and my pc.

What is your favorite aspect of the unit?

Definitely the teamwork and camaraderie of the community. You can jump on the TeamSpeak server and get a game going and some of the gang will join up or you can just hang out and talk to them. I’ve definitely made some new friends by joining the Unit.

Any favorite/funny/memorable moment throughout your whole time in the unit?

There was one night a month or two ago that I jumped on the Realism Server to play Insurgency on the Zargabad map. I jumped in alone to play around with a Sniper kit I was improving on and out of the blue, some guys jumped on the server asking what I was doing. Just told them “nothing much”, since i wasn’t really looking to accomplish anything. We ended up getting about 8-10 guys on the server for the night and took pretty much 75% of the map over. During our clearing of the main City, CPL G.Tucci and I ran our Spartan Kits with scopes on our M4’s and overwatched the two fireteams that were clearing buildings and acting as a DMR Buddy Team. It was a lot of fun and I stayed up way later than I should have with work the next day.

Any advice to give to your fellow soldiers?

Make some friends! Hang out with fellow soldiers during the week or weekend. Doesn’t matter if it’s just hanging out or playing a game you all have, you’ll learn a lot about them and their playstyle by just hanging out. Spartans try to get a game of Among Us going at almost any time. lol

What army value is the most important to you and why?

I would say Integrity would be my most important value. You have to be able to trust your fellow soldiers and they have to be able to trust you. On and off the battlefield. Without trust, not a lot will get accomplished or if it does, it’ll get micro-managed. Integrity also allows you to hold your teammates, friends, or superiors to a common standard.

Any valuable lessons you have learned while being in the unit?

Communication is key. Whether or not you’re playing on the servers, on the TeamSpeak, just in everyday life, communication will go a long way. I’ve settled fights people were having just by explaining what they said to each other because the context of what they meant vs. what they said didn’t come across to the other person. To quote Robin Williams from the movie, Dead Poets Society, "So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.`` Well, the wooing of women not being part of the Unit, Language is still very important.