Promotion Ceremony held in honor of CW3 Burkett
Chief Warrant Officer Three Bill Burkett, who grew up in Calhoun, graduating from Gordon Central High School, was recently honored with a Promotion Ceremony on Jan. 5 at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
Burkett enlisted in the Army on Aug. 20, 1998 as an intelligence analyst. Upon graduating basic training and intelligence analyst school, he attended the U.S. Army Airborne school at Fort Benning, Ga. and was subsequently assigned to the S-2, 1st BN, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, N.C.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, then Sgt. Burkett was selected for TCS to U.S. Central Command Headquarters at MacDill AFB in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. During his TCS, CW3 Burkett successfully complete the Ranger Orientation Program (ROP) at Ft. Benning for assignment to the 25th Ranger Regiment in April, 2002.
As a Staff Sergeant in the Ranger Regiment, CW3 Burkett applied for, and was accepted to attend the U.S. Army Warrant Officer Candidate School at Ft. Rucker, Ala. in November 2005. After completing the Warrant Officer Basic Course at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., CW3 Burkett was assigned to 2nd Infantry Division G2, Camp red Cloud, Republic of Korea. While there, he met his future wife, Irene, who was serving as the 2ID G2X. After spending 10 months in 2nd ID, CW3 Burkett once again assessed and passed ROP for assignment to the 25th Ranger Regiment in the spring of 2007. After serving in the Ranger Regiment Military Intelligence Company for three years, CW3 Burkett PCS’d to serve as a Special Operations Support Team liaison Officer to a government agency in Northern Virginia. After serving in that assignment for five years, CW3 Burkett accepted assignment to Special Operations Command Central in the spring of 2015, where he serves as the analysis and production chief of the J2 directorate.
CW3 Burkett’s awards and schools include two Bronze Star’s, the Meritorious Service medal, four Army Achievement Medal’s, the Ranger tab, the Parachutist Badge, the Air Assault Badge, the Combat Action Badge, German, Canadian, Thai and Paraguayan jump wings, the German marksmanship badge- silver award, and numerous other awards. CW3 Burkett is a 2006 recipient of the Knowlton Award and has completed ten combat tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq.
He is married to the former Irene Tudela Asuncion and they have three boys- Tripp, Duke and Rex.