Owen finishes number one in class earning Distinguished Honor Grad
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Tyler Owen with wife Alyx and son Grayson
On February 4th, 2022, Tyler Owen, a 2016 Chrisman graduate was named Distinguished Honor Grad.
“Distinguished honor graduate is finished number one in my class. I attended a Basic Leader Course for the month of January,” Owen said. “It was a month long course and I finished #1 out of 166 soldiers that attended it at the same time.”
The course goes over all the basic level skills that soldiers work on perfecting. Tyler graduated with a 3.97 on a 4.0 scale. “Some of the assignments that we had were giving classes on skill level tasks, marching soldiers, leading a physical training program, public speaking and essays.”
The course also helped Owen reflect on himself as a leader as far as what he’s doing right and what he needs to approve on.
“It also makes you think abut how your attitude affects others and what you need to do to take care of the soldiers that are appointed under you,” Owen told us. “It means a lot to me that I was able to come out as number one in the class. I put a lot of time and effort into the course and to get the most out of it, so for it to pay off and come out as number one just shows that I went above and beyond what was expected of me.”
Owen also received the Battalion Coin at the ceremony. Coins aren’t the highest level of a reward, but are rarely given out. “Coins are given to individuals when they have gone above and beyond what was expected of them. Receiving this coin makes me very happy,” Tyler said. “I have only been given two coins in my three and a half years of service. It’s nice to be recognized for the hard work I have put into my military career.”
Owen joined the military in August of 2018 to be able to serve his country and start a family. In addition to joining the military in August, Owen also married Alyx Lorenzen on August 15th. The couple share a son, Grayson.
In the beginning, Owen was on temporary station for basic training and his advanced individual training at Fort Sill, but has since then been moved to Fort Bliss.
“I am part of a test battalion that is working on modernizing the Patriot missile equipment.”
Owen’s day to day consists of going to PT in the morning after dropping his son off at daycare, then reports to work at 9:00 a.m. “My MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) is a 14T, which is Patriot Launching Station Enhanced Operator-Maintainers,” Tyler said. “My first two years roughly at Fort Bliss, I worked as what we called ourselves, a “launcher dog”, but I currently work with system maintenance.”
As a launcher dog, Owen would make sure that the equipment was set up properly and ready to fire. Now in system maintenance, he repairs any faults of damages that comes about to the equipment.
“It means a lot to me that I was pulled into systems because it shows that I am well diverse in my job and they trust me to dig deeper into the systems to figure out what is wrong and find the solution to fixing it.”
Work lasts from 9:00-11:30 a.m., followed by lunch until 1:00 p.m. After coming back, the crew finishes what tasks were given and the day ends at 5:00 p.m.
Tyler then picks up his son at day care and spends the evening with his family and prepares for the next day. “Since my unit is a test battalion, we go into the field a lot,” Tyler said. “We usually spend two weeks or up to a month out there working and modernizing the equipment.”
Owen has a year and a half left in the military with an ETS date of January 2023. After being released from the military, Owen and his family plan to move closer to home, but would like to be in a large city to work as a Realtor.
“I do not intend for it to be a lifelong career, but if for some reason I must stay, then I will continue to serve my country with pride.”
