Edwin Maling: Service With the Multinational Force and Observers

Ed Maling is a former paratrooper with the 505th Regiment

By JIM PURCELL

Today, Edwin H. Maling is a grandfather who resides in San Marcos, Texas. He is retired and finds joy in his home-life and his family. But, there was a time, three decades earlier, when hearth and home was the last thing on his mind.

 Mr. Maling is a veteran of the United States Army's 82nd Airborne Division, where he served with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment as an Airborne Infantryman. His travels with the Division took him many places -- and among those places was the Sinai Peninsula, which separates the Middle-Eastern countries of Egypt and Israel, as part of the Multinational Force and Observers.

Mr. Maling's Army sojourn began right out of high-school, in his native Virginia. He was recruited in Norfolk and sworn-in at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Richmond on June 25th, 1981. He attended Basic and Advanced Individual Training at Ft. Benning, Georgia. After earning his blue infantry cord at Ft. Benning, he changed his address a few blocks there and underwent training at the U.S. Army Airborne School.

Like so many young paratroopers, Mr. Maling found his way to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 505th PIR. A storied unit that was founded in 1942 for service in World War II, the 505th has played a key role in nearly every U.S. military endeavor since.

Mr. Maling said, "It was a good unit with excellent training and opportunities and a chance for travel." However, Mr. Maling saw the 'downside' of the unit being its "dog and pony show" atmosphere and what he regarded as "toxic leadership" in some places within the unit at the time.
According to Mr. Maling, life at the 505th included many field training exercises and "prodigious drinking" when him and his fellow paratroopers were released from duty.

The 505th PIR crest

He was not even out of the 82nd Replacement Detachment, which all soldiers entering the Division pass through, when the Fayetteville Observer newspaper announced that the 1/505th Regiment had been selected for "MFO duty."

MFO DUTY

The Multinational Force and Observers is an international peacekeeping force that was organized for the expressed purpose of overseeing the terms of the peace treaty between the nations of Egypt and Israel. The MFO operates throughout the Sinai Peninsula and has included military units from around the world, including: Australia, Canada, Columbia, the Czech Republic, Fiji, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the United States, Uruguay and the United Kingdom.

The MFO's history is traced back to Sept. 17, 1978, and resulted from the Camp David Peace Accords, brokered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The accords called for a full withdrawal by all Israeli forces operating in the Sinai. Subsequently, the two nations signed the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty on March 26, 1979 and the nations of Egypt, Israel and the United States established a peacekeeping force after the United Nations passed on creating the force. So, on August 3, 1981, the MFO was created.

It would not be long after the creation of the MFO that Mr. Maling and his comrades would find their way to the Sinai Peninsula. His unit left Pope Air Force Base on an El Al airliner on March 19th, 1982. They would land at a place called Ophir, which is about nine miles from the MFO base camp at Na' ama Bay, near Sharm El Sheikh (on the southern tip of the Sinai). The contingent would not return to Ft. Bragg until September of that year.

Mr. Maling explained, "We were to observe, verify and report violations of the Camp David Peace Agreement. Basically, we counted and reported every camel, truck, pedestrian or ship that we could see. We would even do roving patrols, both mounted and on foot."

Ed Maling (far left) and his comrades

Mr. Maling said the contingent from the 505th initially spent a few days in the base camp and then deployed in squad-sized observation positions and check points. During the rotation, he said his unit switched locations. Today, though, he says that units at the MFO spend their entire 6-month rotation at the same locale.

"Some of the [fixed] positions that had been used were [created] by the United Nations Peacekeeping Force the Egyptians had ejected in 1956. Most were unimproved but there was at least one microwave relay site that had previously been fortified by the Israelis," Mr. Maling said.

The shift for the paratroopers were four hours long, with eight hours off. They counted whatever they saw and reported their counts hourly.

"I'd say we did a good job," Mr. Maling said. "When we arrived the facilities were almost non-existent. The first observation point I saw had nothing there when we arrived -- just some orange paint marks. Later, they brought in small buildings and 1,000-gallon water tanks." He noted that the paratroopers' radios, model AN-PRC-77s, turned out to be inadequate and the troops were later issued Motorola jeep-mounted high-frequency radios.

READY FOR ACTION: Trooper Ed Maling in the Sinai

One one dark day, an Australian UH-1 helicopter even crashed while delivering food and mail to Mr. Maling and his comrades.

There were many challenges during the rotation, and no small degree of hazards. Mr. Maling said that facilities were "non-existent," communications was poor and there was inadequate supplies of anti-venom. This last item became tragically evident when a soldier from the 505th was stung by a scorpion and died on the emergency helicopter transport flight to Eliat.

"Nobody thought to bring sandbags," he said. "Trying to dig in the sand without sandbags is a complete waste of time."

Mr. Maling said duty in the Sinai was marked by boredom and monotony, punctuated by "...intense, way over the top partying in Cairo and Tel Aviv."  Along the way, though, he also says he received a good education in Middle Eastern cultural contrasts.

BACK IN THE STATES

When his unit did return from the Sinai, it is perhaps ironic that Mr. Maling was re-assigned to the Army's National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, California, where desert-fighting skills are honed within units from around the armed forces.

The MFO Medal awarded to Sinai veterans

While at Ft. Irwin, his command sent Mr. Maling, who was a corporal at this time, to Primary Non-Commissioned Officer training at Ft. Ord, California. If he were to have re-enlisted, his unit made it clear he would be promoted to the rank of sergeant. "By then, it was obvious to me that the Army wasn't the place for me to try making a career," he noted.

After he left the Army, Mr. Maling said he went to college "so I'd never have to sleep in the dirt again." He studied engineering and worked, for a time, with the Bureau of Land Management, fighting fires. He went on to assist in saving Grant Village in Yellowstone National Park from a large fire in 1988.

Eventually, though, Mr. Maling's professional path concluded with him working for Chevron.

Though retired today, Mr. Maling still looks back with pride and satisfaction about his time in the Army as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. Like so many before him, and after him, he took up his uniform and rifle and offered his service before turning his thoughts to family and career.
During his tenure in the Army, Mr. Maling earned the Army's Expert Infantry Badge, Basic Parachutist Badge, MFO Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, NCO Professional Development ribbon and the National Defense Service Medal.