{"id":19458,"date":"2019-12-23T18:00:05","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T18:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/12\/23\/this-command-chief-uncovered-the-tragedy-that-shaped-his-life-now-he-uses-it-to-help-amc-airmen\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:35:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:35:24","slug":"this-command-chief-uncovered-the-tragedy-that-shaped-his-life-now-he-uses-it-to-help-amc-airmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/2019\/12\/23\/this-command-chief-uncovered-the-tragedy-that-shaped-his-life-now-he-uses-it-to-help-amc-airmen\/","title":{"rendered":"This command chief uncovered the tragedy that shaped his life. Now, he uses it to help AMC airmen."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Terrence Greene was growing up in his family\u2019s tiny village in Guyana, there were a lot of things about his story that didn\u2019t add up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He didn\u2019t look like his brothers and sisters. He didn\u2019t know why he lived with his aunt and uncle, while the rest of his siblings lived with their father and stepmother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most perplexingly, he never knew the true story of the fire that took his mother\u2019s life, when he was just six weeks old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, Greene started to unravel the mystery \u2014 and tragedy \u2014 of his origins. What he learned left him deeply unsettled and searching for meaning, even as he pursued a career in the Air Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, Greene \u2014 today the command chief master sergeant of Air Mobility Command \u2014 has found peace with his family\u2019s story and the turmoil it caused him for decades. And as much of the Air Force is struggling to improve airmen\u2019s mental health and resiliency<\/a>, he\u2019s hoping that his example can help serve as a guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt took me years to work up the courage to even share my story with my closest associates,\u201d Greene said in a Dec. 11 interview. \u201cSaying that people are our most valuable resource<\/a> should be way more than just this bumper sticker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greene was born in New Amsterdam, Guyana, in January 1964, the sixth child in his troubled family, and grew up in the coastal village of Goedverwagting. His father was abusive to his mother, Louiza, he said, and had other women on the side. When Greene was born, it was apparent that his mother had also had an affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI came out not looking like the others,\u201d Greene said. \u201cI showed up as mixed with Indian and black, and all of my other brothers and sisters were black. So it was clearly obvious that I was not his child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His mother was deeply shamed after that revelation, Greene said \u2014 and the effect was devastating. One day a month and a half later, she had one of Greene\u2019s sisters bring her a can of kerosene. With all her children still in the house, Greene said, she poured it on herself and set herself on fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After about two weeks in the hospital with third-degree burns, she died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greene\u2019s family was traumatized. His father remarried within a few months \u2014 \u201cwhich kind of tells you where he was on all this,\u201d Greene said. His siblings went with their father and new stepmother. But, Greene said, his father had no intention of raising a boy who wasn\u2019t his, so he was instead taken in by an aunt and uncle on his father\u2019s side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greene ended up with the better living situation. His stepmother was abusive to his siblings, he said \u2014 one sister died and a brother developed epilepsy, he believes due to her abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Terrence Greene, now command chief master sergeant of Air Mobility Command, as a young boy with his aunt’s family, who he grew up with, in an undated photo taken in Jawala, Guyana. Greene is the boy on his knees, next to his cousin Trevor. Standing, left to right: his cousin Linda; cousin Lorraine; aunt Mavis, who raised him as his adopted mother; cousin Hazel; and an unidentified girl from school. (Courtesy of CMSgt Terrence Greene)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He grew up being told that the man who was married to his mother was his biological father, and assumed that the fire that killed his mother was an accident. And for years, he believed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour brain finds a good story that it could live with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But eventually \u2014 around the time he was 9 or so \u2014 he started to realize something was off. He didn\u2019t look like anyone else in his family. What\u2019s more, he started to hear from other kids in the village that his mother had actually killed herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\t