Paul Wentz serves until reaching the rank of brigadier general
(Paul Wentz/Contributed)
By Nick Sellers | Staff Writer
MADISON – Growing up in Mansfield, Ohio in the 1970s, Paul Wentz was already familiar with the military way of life, with his father having served in World War II and his older brother attending the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.
“That’s something I wanted to do,” Wentz said of attending West Point. “We didn’t have a lot of money, so I was looking for something to further myself.”
Wentz graduated from the Academy in 1980, the first class to also graduate women and six years after his brother finished at West Point.
After his graduation, Wentz became an ordnance officer, though he intended to specialize in combat arms.
“They found a heart murmur, so I went to combat service support brand,” Wentz explained.
However, Wentz didn’t have to wait long for his first overseas assignment, shipping off to a weapons site in Germany in 1980. Wentz spent a total of 11 years in Germany throughout his 31-year military career.
“I still try to go back, see friends and people we got to know [in Germany],” Wentz said.
Wentz was stationed in Germany until 1984, when he returned to the United States. He went through advanced courses at various Army installations, including the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn.
It was when Wentz was stationed in Germany that he was deployed to Iraq for the first time, in 2004, as a brigade commander. The second time Wentz served in Iraq, he was responsible for commanding all the logistics units as the senior logistician during a massive draw-down in troops.
“We had to get all the equipment, supplies, out of the country,” Wentz said. “Every day it was a different puzzle to solve.”
In addition to serving as an executive officer for a four-star general at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, Wentz’s last active-duty assignment was the U.S. Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for logistics in Europe. Wentz retired in 2011 as a brigadier general.
Wentz now works as the director of the southeast region for LMI Consulting, Inc., a corporation that provides consulting and analysis for government organizations.
“We’ve got a great group of dedicated folks that I work with here,” Wentz said.
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