August 20, 2025 • 6 mins
Colonel Werner J. Barden is a native of Thomasville, GA. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Lee University, TN in 1993. He commissioned into the United States Army in 1999 from North Georgia College where he received his Master's Degree in International Studies. COL Barden received his Master of Strategic Studies degree from the United States Army War College in 2020.
His previous military assignments include:
Chief of Staff, Medical Readiness Command-Europe,
Sembach, Germany; Commander, 519th Hospital
Center, Sembach, Germany; G-3/5/7, Regional Health
Command-Central and Chief, Basic Officer Leader
Course, Army Medical Command, Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, TX; Commander, 264th Medical Battalion, JBSA-FSH, TX; Chief, J-4 Health Service Support, USFK/CFC/UNC and BDE S-3, 65th Medical Brigade, Yongsan, Republic of Korea; Deputy, G-37 Force Management and G-33 Current Operations Officer, Office of The Surgeon General, Falls Church, VA; Executive Officer, 232nd Medical Battalion, 32nd Medical Brigade, Fort Sam Houston, TX; Division Medical Planner, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, GA; Commander, Training Sustainment Company, Camp Bullis, TX; Brigade Operations & Plans Officer, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Executive Officer, Charlie Company, 307th Forward Support Battalion and Medical Platoon Leader, 1-504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, NC.
His previous military assignments include:
Chief of Staff, Medical Readiness Command-Europe,
Sembach, Germany; Commander, 519th Hospital
Center, Sembach, Germany; G-3/5/7, Regional Health
Command-Central and Chief, Basic Officer Leader
Course, Army Medical Command, Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, TX; Commander, 264th Medical Battalion, JBSA-FSH, TX; Chief, J-4 Health Service Support, USFK/CFC/UNC and BDE S-3, 65th Medical Brigade, Yongsan, Republic of Korea; Deputy, G-37 Force Management and G-33 Current Operations Officer, Office of The Surgeon General, Falls Church, VA; Executive Officer, 232nd Medical Battalion, 32nd Medical Brigade, Fort Sam Houston, TX; Division Medical Planner, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, GA; Commander, Training Sustainment Company, Camp Bullis, TX; Brigade Operations & Plans Officer, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Executive Officer, Charlie Company, 307th Forward Support Battalion and Medical Platoon Leader, 1-504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, NC.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My Heart Radio is proud to support our military community
from the largest military installation in North America.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Let's go on.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Post at ford Hood, brought to you by Elder Mitsubishi.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We're so excited and privileged this morning to be joined
by Colonel Werner Barton, first Medical Brigade Commander at Fort Hood.
Colonel Bardon, how are you, sir?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Hey Dwayne, We're doing great, and it's great to talk
to you and it's always a pleasure to spend time
with you and iHeartRadio listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Sir, We're going to jump right in. It is back
to school season and we want to talk about the
Education Services back to School Bash which is coming up.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
This is our favorite time of year for parents and
kids too, right as we get back into the swing
of our daily routines in school and in the Fordhood
Education and Service Division is leaning forward with this and
they're going to host a back to school bash from
eleven am to one pm at the Education Center there
on take thet Taigan Avenue. There're gonna be college representatives,
it could be resource offices, could be free food. There's
your chance to win so much stuff backpack school supplies.
(00:55):
And I'm being told maybe even a laptop. Very nice,
and it's always these things are always open to all
our dood ardholders here on the post have access.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Now, speaking of back to school, let's talk about back
to school safety. They're on post at ford Hood and
just in general.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
You know, sure we all get excited about getting back
to school, but we've gotten into our summer routines and
breaking out of that sometimes is tough to do, and
safety tendants to take the back seat as we rush
to get our kids to schools. And so with the
starter school, we always like to stop and take some
time to review just some basic safety precautions to ensure
we protect both the communities and neighborhoods that we all
live in. You know, we always say students would travel
(01:29):
in groups, you know, and notify the parents where they're
at at all times that becomes especially critical, or our milit
translation where there's a lot of after school our things
to do, and you know, it's always we've grown up
and we continue to tell our children to just be
careful who you interact with, especially when it comes to strangers.
Bus stops, oh my goodness, even me this morning run
of my son to the bus. You got to get
there at least five minutes before traffic and congestion. You
(01:51):
never know when the bus is going to get there,
and we certainly don't leave our children sitting on the curb.
But when that bus comes, we've got to stand six
seeks away from that curb, and we're all talking to
catch up. We go to make sure we line up
down the sidewalk byway from the street, you know. And
for us parents we're driving in that school zone, just
remember slow down. Our kids are excited about school and
they're going to run across a road or a parking
lot without looking two ways, just because they're excited. And
(02:12):
so would always like to tell our parents, if you're
driving your kids, just be cautious, be aware, be alert,
always be ready to enjoy the school year with the
families and the children. No matter where we are, whether
it's at the bus stop or we're driving our kids off,
let's just keep each other safe and all of us
enjoy the new school year together.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
We're visiting this morning with Colonel Werner Barton, first Medical
Brigade Commander at ford Hood. Sarah, Let's talk about First
Medical Brigade and who you are, what you do.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, so Dwayne, Thanks. I mean we, you know, the
first medical gade. We're based out of here Fort had Texas,
but we've got units across Fort Bliss, Texas, Fort Carson, Colorado,
Fort Port Louisiana, and we are the Army's oldest, largest
and most deployed medical brigade. We've been doing this since
nineteen seventeen and been a part of every conflict that
the US has been And what we specialize in is
we really coordinate that health serve support and that force
(02:59):
health protection for those echelons above the brigade, both there
in combat operations and domestic emergencies. The DESERF mission is
an unique opportunity we get to participate in, and this
year we assumed a critical homeland defense mission called the
DESERVE the Defense Sea Burn Response Force, you know, our
d SERVE for short. You know, unfortunately the unthinkable happens,
a chemical, biological, rate, logical or nuclear incident happens on you.
(03:21):
At SOUL. We are the ones that are are that
have been trained and validated and ready to respond, and
our role is to coordinate that life saving medical operations
in partnership with our civil authorities FEMA and other medicare
units to ensure we take care of all of our
US citizens no matter when and where that incident may occur.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Now, there's an upcoming leadership summit and unit validation prior
to deployment. Let's discuss that just a mom with colonel.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah. So, when when you have an organization as large
as as we are, as spread of costs, you have
to bring your leaders together every now and tend to
re look at the map, if you will. Are we
moving the organization in the right direction and we're moving
it forward? And so this is our second leaders at
summit when we bring our senior leaders across all inslations
in and we really look at what we called what
are those lines of efforts as we build our strategy
to continue to be relevant and ready to respond and
(04:07):
support our war fighters. And so this quarter we've got
our next leadership something coming up, and we're bringing those
leaders across to do just that. We touched it a
couple of months ago, and now we're going to revalidate
those lines of effort and those operational objectives inside those
line of efforts to ensure they're still valid and we
can still move this medical capability to support and only
our core, but our army it need be and why
we do all that, This brigade stays very busy. We
(04:29):
constantly are supporting folks in and around the world all
the time, and that requires us to make sure our
medical units are ready to do what they need to
do when called on. We always say we have to
be our best on somebody's worst day, and so a
GAY constantly validates all our units that are coming up
for either rapid response force missions or for deployments. And
when we do that, as we do that by fully
(04:50):
training them, equipping them and ready to provide that world
class mode support in any operational environment that may be
needed across the world.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Now, a big part of this is family and community support.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah any army, we are very fortunate to have a
very strong program called the Soldier and Family Readiness Groups,
and we have to remember our readiness as the military
is not just about our gear and our training, it's
about our families too, and our families are really the
reason why we do this, and so we always use
an SFRG to keep our loved ones informed, prepared, and
support them whenever needed, when deployed or even we're here
(05:20):
at home station We do a lot of great events.
We do dinners, we do coffees, we do meetings to
pass information on. But one of the things we'd like
to do in first medigad is we take an initial initiative.
We invite each one of our families out to the
last day of our units training out in the field
known as a field training exercise or FPX, when we
host a barbecue and we allow our families to see
where their loved ones actually work and how they work
(05:43):
inside a training environment. And it really opens up and
creates dialogues not only with the command of the families,
but the service member and family too, and we see
it's the big win. And that's one of the things
we do on a regular routine basis.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Colonel Barton, we like to bring this up on the
program each and every Week's so very important, sir, we
are still in the fight.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Dwain. You're absolutely right, and we like to remind everybody
we see to include our iHeart listeners that you know,
on any given day, about seventy hundred four HITS soldiers
are currently deployed around the world. I mean, we've got
soldiers down on the southern border, we got soldiers in Europe,
South Korea, South America, Africa, and in the Middle East.
And we just ask your listeners along with us, to
keep all those soldiers that are deployed and more importantly,
(06:21):
their families and your follow from prayers.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Colonel Warner Barton, first Medical Brigade Commander, Sir, we thank
you for your time on the show this morning, Dwayne.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Thank you again, sir for having us. It's always a
great time to spending time with you and iHeart Nation
and we look forward to doing it again soon.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Thank you for supporting our military to get even more
and here this week's full report. Go to our website
and click on post at for hood from Elder Mitsubishi
and IR Radio number one for music radio and podcasts.
My Heart Radio is proud to support our military community
from the largest military installation in North America.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Let's go on.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Post at ford Hood, brought to you by Elder Mitsubishi.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We're so excited and privileged this morning to be joined
by Colonel Werner Barton, first Medical Brigade Commander at Fort Hood.
Colonel Bardon, how are you, sir?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Hey Dwayne, We're doing great, and it's great to talk
to you and it's always a pleasure to spend time
with you and iHeartRadio listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Sir, We're going to jump right in. It is back
to school season and we want to talk about the
Education Services back to School Bash which is coming up.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
This is our favorite time of year for parents and
kids too, right as we get back into the swing
of our daily routines in school and in the Fordhood
Education and Service Division is leaning forward with this and
they're going to host a back to school bash from
eleven am to one pm at the Education Center there
on take thet Taigan Avenue. There're gonna be college representatives,
it could be resource offices, could be free food. There's
your chance to win so much stuff backpack school supplies.
(00:55):
And I'm being told maybe even a laptop. Very nice,
and it's always these things are always open to all
our dood ardholders here on the post have access.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Now, speaking of back to school, let's talk about back
to school safety. They're on post at ford Hood and
just in general.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
You know, sure we all get excited about getting back
to school, but we've gotten into our summer routines and
breaking out of that sometimes is tough to do, and
safety tendants to take the back seat as we rush
to get our kids to schools. And so with the
starter school, we always like to stop and take some
time to review just some basic safety precautions to ensure
we protect both the communities and neighborhoods that we all
live in. You know, we always say students would travel
(01:29):
in groups, you know, and notify the parents where they're
at at all times that becomes especially critical, or our milit
translation where there's a lot of after school our things
to do, and you know, it's always we've grown up
and we continue to tell our children to just be
careful who you interact with, especially when it comes to strangers.
Bus stops, oh my goodness, even me this morning run
of my son to the bus. You got to get
there at least five minutes before traffic and congestion. You
(01:51):
never know when the bus is going to get there,
and we certainly don't leave our children sitting on the curb.
But when that bus comes, we've got to stand six
seeks away from that curb, and we're all talking to
catch up. We go to make sure we line up
down the sidewalk byway from the street, you know. And
for us parents we're driving in that school zone, just
remember slow down. Our kids are excited about school and
they're going to run across a road or a parking
lot without looking two ways, just because they're excited. And
(02:12):
so would always like to tell our parents, if you're
driving your kids, just be cautious, be aware, be alert,
always be ready to enjoy the school year with the
families and the children. No matter where we are, whether
it's at the bus stop or we're driving our kids off,
let's just keep each other safe and all of us
enjoy the new school year together.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
We're visiting this morning with Colonel Werner Barton, first Medical
Brigade Commander at ford Hood. Sarah, Let's talk about First
Medical Brigade and who you are, what you do.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, so Dwayne, Thanks. I mean we, you know, the
first medical gade. We're based out of here Fort had Texas,
but we've got units across Fort Bliss, Texas, Fort Carson, Colorado,
Fort Port Louisiana, and we are the Army's oldest, largest
and most deployed medical brigade. We've been doing this since
nineteen seventeen and been a part of every conflict that
the US has been And what we specialize in is
we really coordinate that health serve support and that force
(02:59):
health protection for those echelons above the brigade, both there
in combat operations and domestic emergencies. The DESERF mission is
an unique opportunity we get to participate in, and this
year we assumed a critical homeland defense mission called the
DESERVE the Defense Sea Burn Response Force, you know, our
d SERVE for short. You know, unfortunately the unthinkable happens,
a chemical, biological, rate, logical or nuclear incident happens on you.
(03:21):
At SOUL. We are the ones that are are that
have been trained and validated and ready to respond, and
our role is to coordinate that life saving medical operations
in partnership with our civil authorities FEMA and other medicare
units to ensure we take care of all of our
US citizens no matter when and where that incident may occur.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Now, there's an upcoming leadership summit and unit validation prior
to deployment. Let's discuss that just a mom with colonel.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah. So, when when you have an organization as large
as as we are, as spread of costs, you have
to bring your leaders together every now and tend to
re look at the map, if you will. Are we
moving the organization in the right direction and we're moving
it forward? And so this is our second leaders at
summit when we bring our senior leaders across all inslations
in and we really look at what we called what
are those lines of efforts as we build our strategy
to continue to be relevant and ready to respond and
(04:07):
support our war fighters. And so this quarter we've got
our next leadership something coming up, and we're bringing those
leaders across to do just that. We touched it a
couple of months ago, and now we're going to revalidate
those lines of effort and those operational objectives inside those
line of efforts to ensure they're still valid and we
can still move this medical capability to support and only
our core, but our army it need be and why
we do all that, This brigade stays very busy. We
(04:29):
constantly are supporting folks in and around the world all
the time, and that requires us to make sure our
medical units are ready to do what they need to
do when called on. We always say we have to
be our best on somebody's worst day, and so a
GAY constantly validates all our units that are coming up
for either rapid response force missions or for deployments. And
when we do that, as we do that by fully
(04:50):
training them, equipping them and ready to provide that world
class mode support in any operational environment that may be
needed across the world.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Now, a big part of this is family and community support.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah any army, we are very fortunate to have a
very strong program called the Soldier and Family Readiness Groups,
and we have to remember our readiness as the military
is not just about our gear and our training, it's
about our families too, and our families are really the
reason why we do this, and so we always use
an SFRG to keep our loved ones informed, prepared, and
support them whenever needed, when deployed or even we're here
(05:20):
at home station We do a lot of great events.
We do dinners, we do coffees, we do meetings to
pass information on. But one of the things we'd like
to do in first medigad is we take an initial initiative.
We invite each one of our families out to the
last day of our units training out in the field
known as a field training exercise or FPX, when we
host a barbecue and we allow our families to see
where their loved ones actually work and how they work
(05:43):
inside a training environment. And it really opens up and
creates dialogues not only with the command of the families,
but the service member and family too, and we see
it's the big win. And that's one of the things
we do on a regular routine basis.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Colonel Barton, we like to bring this up on the
program each and every Week's so very important, sir, we
are still in the fight.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Dwain. You're absolutely right, and we like to remind everybody
we see to include our iHeart listeners that you know,
on any given day, about seventy hundred four HITS soldiers
are currently deployed around the world. I mean, we've got
soldiers down on the southern border, we got soldiers in Europe,
South Korea, South America, Africa, and in the Middle East.
And we just ask your listeners along with us, to
keep all those soldiers that are deployed and more importantly,
(06:21):
their families and your follow from prayers.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Colonel Warner Barton, first Medical Brigade Commander, Sir, we thank
you for your time on the show this morning, Dwayne.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Thank you again, sir for having us. It's always a
great time to spending time with you and iHeart Nation
and we look forward to doing it again soon.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Thank you for supporting our military to get even more
and here this week's full report. Go to our website
and click on post at for hood from Elder Mitsubishi
and IR Radio number one for music radio and podcasts.
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