VIPs - Very Important Parishioners

Soldier graduates basic combat

Army National Guard Pvt. Destine M. Jory has graduated from basic combat training at Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C.

During the nine weeks of training, the soldier studied the army mission, history, tradition and core values, physical fitness, and received instruction and practice in basic combat skills, military weapons, chemical warfare and bayonet training, drill and ceremony, marching, rifle marksmanship, armed and unarmed combat, map reading, field tactics, military courtesy, military justice system, basic first aid, foot marches, and field training exercises.

She is the daughter of Cyndi Hall of Paradis, and granddaughter of Sherry Smith of Carmalee of Houston,

Jory is a 2007 graduate of Adult Learning Center, in Boutte.

Staff sergeant deployed to Asia

Air National Guard Staff Sgt. Israel T. Doyle has deployed to a forward-operating base in Southwest Asia to support the missions of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

Operation Enduring Freedom is the official name given to anti-terrorism military operations involving U.S. troops and allied coalition partners.

Mission objectives encompass combating the international terrorist network or regime forces outside the borders of the United States. U.S. troops serve in South and Southwest Asia, Central Asia, the Arabian peninsula, the Horn of Africa, islands in the Pacific, and Europe.

Operation Iraqi Freedom is the official name given to military operations involving U.S. and coalition forces efforts to liberate the Iraqi people, preserve Iraq as a unified state, keep its territorial integrity intact, and help the Iraqi people begin the process of economic and political reconstruction.

The mission of U.S. troops in Operation Horn of Africa is to detect, disrupt and defeat transnational terrorist groups in the region and to support coalition partner efforts to deny opportunity for re-emergence of terrorist networks in the central, eastern Horn of Africa.

Doyle, a services apprentice shift supervisor, is a member of the 159th Fighter Wing at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in New Orleans. The staff sergeant has served in the military for eight years.

He is the son Odie M. Mashia of St. Charles Street in Destrehan.

The guardsman is a 1983 graduate of G.W. Carver Senior High School, New Orleans.