Atlanta mayor called to active Reserve duty
ATLANTA, Texas —
Mayor and Army Reserve
Command Sgt. Maj. Travis
Ransom has been called to active duty in support of Operation Freedom’s
Sentinel, according to a City of Atlanta press release.
Attempts to reach
Ransom for comment after business hours
Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Ransom will deploy to
Afghanistan as the Battalion Command Sergeant Major with the 321st Expeditionary Military Intelligence Battalion later this fall and expects to spend up to nine months overseas, the release states.
OFS is part of a NATO mission that conducts counterterrorism operations targeting terrorist groups like al Qaeda and the local ISIS affiliate. OFS also conducts a train, advise and assist mission to build up local Afghan security forces.
Ransom is a 23-year veteran of the Army Reserve who has mobilized and deployed numerous times.
He has been Atlanta mayor since August 2017.
Mayor Pro-tempore Dean McDuff will run city council meetings in Ransom’s absence, according to the press release.
Attempts to reach McDuff for comment after business hours Tuesday were also unsuccessful.
“This is a historic time to deploy as we face uncertainty around the globe,” Ransom said. “Deploying in the middle of a pandemic, during a presidential election, and while peace talks with the Taliban are ongoing, adds additional complexity to the mission.”
Ransom graduated from Atlanta High School in 1996 and attended Texarkana College and Texas A&M University-Texarkana. Prior to college, he joined the Army Reserves.”
“I felt it was a good way to pay for college,” Ransom told the Gazette in 2019. “My dad was a retired lieutenant colonel, and any men I’ve ever known that were worth their salt were in the Army.”
As a counterintelligence agent in the Reserves, Ransom was called upon to go to many places. The most memorable assignment was during the conflicts following the collapse of Yugoslavia in the ’90s, he said earlier.
That kind of experience helped him rise in rank to command sergeant major, the highest enlisted rank a Reservist can hold.