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Major General Timothy Orr Reflects On Iowa National Guard Tenure

US Departmen of Defense
Maj. Gen. Timothy Orr, adjutant general of Iowa, flies in a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter to survey the devastation from flooding in Green and Charles City, Iowa, Sept. 26, 2016.

For ten years, Major General Timothy Orr served as adjutant general for the Iowa National Guard, and his entire career in the guard spans more than 40 years. On this segment of River to River host Ben Kieffer talks with Orr about his recent retirement and the challenges and highlights of overseeing the Iowa National Guard, including combat tours in the Middle East and disaster relief around the country.

Orr served in the National Guard since his senior year at Boone High Schoool, and in that time he was deployed on 18 combat tours and had an active role in natural disaster relief including the devastating floods of 1993 and 2008. In his time as adjunct general, he oversaw the largest federal mobilization of troops in the state since WWII, when 2800 servicemen and women were deployed to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010.

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Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River