Naval officer to serve as Tour de Terrace grand marshal

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE —Three years after graduating from Mountlake Terrace High in 1993, Benjamin Umayam enlisted in the Navy, where he was assigned to a combat search-and-rescue helicopter squadron that was deployed twice to the Persian Gulf.

Since then, the petty officer first class has served two deployments in the gulf, including working on a unit that disarms the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) that have killed so many soldiers and non-soldiers.

On Friday, July 27, Umayam, 32, will be the grand marshal in the Tour de Terrace parade that starts at 7 p.m. at the city’s municipal campus. Earlier this year, he was awarded the Bronze Star, a medal of valor, for his service in Iraq from June to December 2006.

“It’s the first time I’ve been asked to be the grand marshal of a parade,” he said. “It’s a great honor.”

Umayam has been home for a short stay visiting his family, including mother, Judy Austin of Mountlake Terrace; his wife, Kim Umayam; and sons Jonah, 4, and Hunter, 1. He’ll return to his eight-man special operations unit in Iraq in September.

“Not many people know what my guys do over there,” he said. “The guys that I work with, we knowingly go into an ambush. Every time we have a mission, it’s because there are Army or Marine units pinned down out there and they can’t move until we get there.”

His special operations unit is called upon to detonate IEDs. They also examine the devices, looking for forensic evidence that traces the manufacturer’s location, he said.

“It’s pretty much known across the board in the military that what we do is about as high risk as you can get,” he said.

Those risks have hit home lately, he said. Last week, two members of his unit were killed in roadside bombings. In the past six months, five soldiers from his unit have been killed.

Umayam said it’s hard to leave his family.

“I’m definitely not in a big hurry to get back,” he said.

“To me, the real sacrifices that are made are by the families — my wife and kids and my friends’ wives and kids,” he said. “They see it every day . It’s very hard for them to watch.”