Since childhood Maj. Bryan Suazo, a native of West Richland, Washington, wanted to follow his grandfathers’ examples of service to the nation. Today he serves as part of the Reserve Personnel Management Directorate’s Active Guard Reserve, or AGR, Accessions Team at the U.S. Army Human Resources Command.
“Being a Soldier, being AGR, and I get an award every two weeks in the form of pay. It's pretty cool,” Suazo said. “Just the upward mobility has been more than I ever could have imagined. And my daughter – because I've been to college, she has my GI bill.”
Family legacy
His maternal grandfather, who served as a truck driver in the Army, died when Suazo was a young child.
“I have super fond memories of going camping and fishing with him,” he said.
Suazo’s paternal grandfather was drafted into the Army during World War II.
“He was a combat engineer with the Seventh Army, he worked under the lineage of Patton,” Suazo said. “He fought in North Africa, Italy, he probably went to Europe, too.”
After returning home, Suazo’s grandfather married his sweetheart and together they began raising a family in Romeo, Colorado.
“They decided to move to Washington for different opportunities,” Suazo said. “In the 1960s, when my grandparents moved, part of it was to distance themselves from their Hispanic heritage, to assimilate for upward mobility and better opportunities for their children including my dad. Being different isn't viewed the same today as it was back in the 1950s and 1960s.”
Suazo learned the importance of doing the right thing even if it is difficult from his parents, a trait his paternal grandparents exemplified through hard work and perseverance.
“If something needed to be fixed, you figured it out, you made do with what you had and you improvised a lot,” he said. “That's probably the biggest thing – finding a way and not giving up.”
Striving to do the right thing, perseverance and hard work are childhood lessons that have served Suazo well into adulthood and later as a Soldier.
Becoming all he can be
While in college Suazo joined the Air Force ROTC but he did not continue with it, he said. After graduation he became a manager for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.
“As I got older in my civilian career, I started asking myself: ‘Is this what you are doing?’” Suazo said. “Serving in the Army was just always in the back of my mind.”
Suazo knew if he did not at least give the Army a try he might live to regret it.
“The not knowing is what I couldn't live with,” he said. “So, I went and I talked to a recruiter.”
Because he had a college degree, Suazo wanted to get commissioned. He interviewed for the active component but was not selected because of his age.
“But I must've struck a chord with the interviewers because they said, ‘Hey, we think you'd be a good candidate for the Reserve,’” he said.
Suazo interviewed with a Buckeye, Arizona, Reserve unit that was in need of a personnelist and that is how he became a human resources officer in the Army’s Adjutant General Corps.
“One of my minors in college was business focusing on human resources and personnel,” he said. “Honestly, they could have said you go be a ditch digger and I would have said ‘let's go’.”
Suazo joined the Army Reserve Feb. 28, 2012, about six months before his 29th birthday. He started basic training April 30, 2012, at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
“I was there right in the summer and coming from Arizona, of course it's hot there but relatively low humidity. It doesn't change the fact that it's still a hundred plus degrees, but nothing could have prepared me for that humidity. It was rough,” he said. “Then after basic, I had a two-day travel break and then went down to Fort Benning, Georgia – Fort Moore now – for Officer Candidate School. And of course it was July through October, so, it was even more humid.”
Suazo continued working for AAFES and drilled with his Reserve unit where he served as the S1 for four years.
By shear happenstance, Suazo found himself in the right place at the right time. A major at a unit where he was doing an investigation asked him if he had ever thought about going AGR.
AGR Soldiers serve full-time and enjoy the same benefits as active-duty Soldiers including the ability to retire after 20 years of service.
Suazo submitted his application the day before it was due and was later notified he qualified.
“About six months later, I was driving home from my AAFES job at Luke Air Force Base,” he said. “I got a call on a Friday asking if I wanted to accept an AGR position in North Carolina with an MP battalion.”
The caller told Suazo AGR Soldiers typically have 24-hours to accept an assignment but since it was Friday he could have the weekend to decide. He accepted the assignment immediately.
“It was a good thing that I had Bluetooth in my car because I was so excited, I was not necessarily paying attention to the road,” he said. “I've been AGR since April 25, 2016.”
Serving AGR
When Suazo arrived at his unit in Cary, North Carolina, he found that many Soldiers had pay issues because of mismanagement or apathy, he said.
“As an AG professional you do not realize how much of an impact little things can have on Soldiers,” Suazo said. “You can directly affect individual Soldiers for the better and get them things they are ultimately entitled to. Knowing just how much of a difference those micro-transactions can have – that’s what keeps me going.”
This first AGR tour almost compelled Suazo to call it quits. The unit was understaffed, but expectations remained high, he said.
“I thought about coming off AGR, but then thinking long-term I decided to stick it out,” Suazo said. “I'm beyond glad I did because as I've learned after three or four moves in multiple assignments, different locations, deployments and all that, it's all temporary. The one thing that you can't stop is time, that will always go on – so just keep at it, just keep at it. If I can do it, anybody can do it.”
Today, Suazo is the person on the other side of a telephone call offering Soldiers AGR positions.
“In this position it’s like I’ve won the lottery every day,” he said. “All it takes is one, that one call you make where somebody wants to hug you through the phone. Like you can just feel it, or you can feel the ear-to-ear smile. That's pretty cool.”
Suazo is quick to say the Army is what you make of it, you have to take the opportunities to become all you can be.
“Just open yourself up to opportunities, step out of your comfort zone or ask about something you don't know about, you can find so many things in the Army,” he said. “Try to expand yourself in any way and learning is the first step. From there, you can always learn more and be all you can be. You can always improve your foxhole by learning something new, doing something new, trying something new. Just get out there. We've got a very finite amount of time in this life so make the most of it.”
Suazo’s paternal grandfather did not live to see his grandson become a commissioned officer, but he did see him in uniform once.
“When I was in Air Force ROTC in the early 2000s, I remember I went to my grandparents’ house unexpectedly and I was in uniform. My grandfather had worked hard manual labor for years, so he wasn't the quickest moving guy anymore. When he saw me in my dress uniform, I'd never seen him shoot up or move so fast. I remember the proud look on his face, even though he wasn't very expressive. He just shook my hand and put his hand on my shoulder. It was his way of telling me that he was proud of me. That is something that has always stuck with me. It was just a few seconds long, but it was awesome.”
For more information about the Active Guard Reserve program, visit https://www.usar.army.mil/AGR/.
