Michael P. Manning

Michael P. Manning /
Michael P. Manning /

AGE: 32
POSITION: R.I. Army National Guard state partnership coordinator
LIFELONG AMBITION: To make his wife, Meg, and children proud
FAVORITE BOOK: “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” by Ernest Hemingway
GUILTY PLEASURE: Eating a quarter of ice cream in a single sitting

Maj. Michael P. Manning has gained some recognition lately as the public face of the State Partnership Program, an initiative of the R.I. National Guard to link Ocean State citizens, businesses and educational institutions to their peers in the Bahamas to foster trade and cultural understanding and expand educational opportunities for both partners.
But as rewarding as that work has been, Manning still counts his deployment in the former Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 as the most influential event of his professional career.
One cannot imagine a more challenging job: “My unit had been tasked to participate in stability operations in war-torn Kosovo. This job was twofold: repatriate the Kosovar Albanians and quell ethnic strife between the Albanians and the Serbs.”
His U.S. Army active-duty service in the Balkans and Active Guard Reserve rotation into Iraq from January through November 2005 have been recognized and rewarded. He earned a Bronze Star, a Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters and the Army Achievement Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, among other commendations.
Manning has lived the military life since graduating from Providence College in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in history. He was posted to Germany from the summer of 1998 through the spring of 2000 (which included his five-month deployment to Kosovo). He then came off active duty to assume the role of a traditional National Guardsman, with one week per month and two full weeks per year of training, which allowed him to take a position with his father’s executive recruiting business in Boston.
But he “missed wearing the green suit,” so in 2004, he went into the Active Guard Reserve for the R.I. National Guard, an active-duty status that allows him to serve his country, but also his state.
He takes the honor humbly, he says, because “there is nothing that any of us in the Army do that isn’t a team effort.”

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