Page 63 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2022 - Online Magazine

ARMY

officer for Mexico and Guatemala and the Salvadoran
desk officer during their Civil War. “I regularly
briefed Senate committees. Senator Jesse Helms (then-
Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee) was
always asking tough questions of me. Later, I ran the
Indications and Warnings Desk for Latin America. I
was assigned as the Military Attaché in El Salvador,
where we spent two years (‘85-‘87) at the height of
their Civil War.

“In 1987, I returned to the Pentagon in Army Plans
and Operations. I was the Latin America and Special
Forces Desk Officer. I traveled to Alaska during the
Valdez oil spill and to Panama during Operation Just
Cause (the U.S. removal of General Manuel Ortega.)
Next, I was sent to the Dominican Republic as the
Defense Attaché. My duty assignments included six
of the Caribbean Islands and all of Central and South
America.”
Garry retired in August 1992 as a Lt. Colonel and
returned to Texas Tech to work on a PhD. He later
taught Junior ROTC students at Estacado High School
for 12 years. “All told, I was in uniform for 36 years.”
Both sons followed their dad into the Army—Geoff,
an Army Artillery Captain who served 15 years, and
Jason as an Armor Enlisted Soldier. They have given
Garry and Donna three awesome grandsons.
Donna has had an interesting life in addition to her
travels with her husband. After finishing her degree
at Wayland, she worked at the Texas Tech Museum,
studied Spanish at the Texas Tech Center in Seville,
Spain, and eventually became the Coordinator
in Lubbock for that location. She recruited all the
professors and students attending the Center. Just
as she had accompanied Garry on his missions, her
husband made several trips to Seville to “help out.”

There is no way to calculate all the lives that have
been touched by the Wrights—from teenagers in
Lubbock, Tech students in Spain, families in Third
World countries whose lives were improved by US
military presence, to unknowing US citizens, whose
lives may have been spared by a thwarted terrorist
attack. Thanks to Garry (and Donna’s) lifelong
commitment to go wherever duty called, countless
people have benefitted.

Lubbock Senior Link 63