03/21/2004 Archived Entry: "Ft. Campbell, Pt 2 of 2"
(Part 2 of 2)
Presidents and generals are all fine and good, but for me the best part of the visit was spending time with the guys.
Before I get too much into this, I want to say this: the soldiers I was with over the weekend are the finest men I have ever had the honor of meeting. They are, to a man, loyal, courageous, honorable, respectful, strong, and good. We truly do send the best of us to fight and die. These men are amazing. I am enriched by knowing them, and my heart rests easier knowing that my brother was surrounded by men of this caliber--true men, in every sense of the word.
All of the guys I’m going to talk about were in my brother’s company, and almost all of them were in my brother’s platoon--and most of them were in his squad. In this picture, top row from left to right, is Spc. Joe Woods, Spc, Chris Khuelem, me, PV2 Jason McBride (who stayed with us four weeks ago for a weekend), and Spc, Phillips. Bottom row is my dad, Spc. Matt Watson, and my mom. Here’s another pic, and here’s one with KK in it! She’s pretty! I love her!
Chris acted as our chauffeur and guide for the weekend, and you will never meet a friendlier guy, and he and Phillips were good friends with my brother. Woods, Watson, and McBride were also buddies with my brother, and those three were present when he was killed. Woods helped pull my brother from the wreckage of the HMMWV, and McBride took my brother’s weapon and stood over my brother, with his feet planted on either side of his body, and made sure none of the locals came close and tried to look at him.
Watson--he’s my favorite, although he was hurt very badly in the attack. Watson was in the front seat of my brother’s HMMWV when they were hit, and was chewed pretty thoroughly by shrapnel. He ended up with a really wicked-cool scar on his face--check it out, ladies!--but he also has a large amount of scaring on his arms and legs and back, and he’s lost most of the mobility and feeling in his right arm and hand, and he’s also lost a good amount of his vision in his right eye. He’s going through the torture of physical therapy right now. When I asked him how he was doing, he said, “Good, now that they’re done cutting on me. Seven surgeries is enough. They wanted to do another set, but I told them ‘no’.”
We spent a LOT of time talking with these guys. After a few hours, Lt. Adam Carollo showed up sporting a broken arm, which he’d not had the evening before. It turns out that he’d dropped his motorcycle at twenty miles an hour when the back wheel hit some gravel. He immediately became an object of derision and remained such for several minutes. It was pretty funny.
Lt. Carollo only knew my brother for six days, but my brother made a large impression on him. Adam was responsible for organizing the weekend get-together, and he’s also an amazing guy.
The soldiers presented my parents and I with a large flag that everyone in the platoon (the “Hooligans”) had signed, in honor of my brother. It was difficult to photograph, so I took a few--an overview, a detail of the left side, a second detail of the left side, and a detail of the right side.
We also got to meet Captain Mike Wiser, the company commander. You talk about an Army poster boy--this guy is it. He is the very model of an early-thirties man with his shit absolutely squared away: tall, strong jaw, precision haircut, good teeth, a ready smile and a solid handshake. He was a caring, compassionate guy and he talked to me at length. I jokingly asked him if I could get some time on the range with an M240B like my brother carried, and his face fell. I apologized for offending him, and he held up his hands and started apologizing to me--he said that they were out of 7.62mm ammunition, and that they were getting some more next week. If they’d had ammo, he said, he would have taken me directly over to fire off a few rounds. Talk about endearing yourself to someone--he became my instant hero!
Saturday evening, we had dinner at the home of Lt. Col. Stephen Bruch. If Captain Wiser is the perfect model of an early-thirties officer, then Col. Bruch is the perfect model of an early-forties officer. I do believe that his haircut could have actually cut glass, and if there was an ounce of fat anywhere on his body, I sure as hell don’t know where he could have put it. Hugging this guy was like hugging a block of marble.
Col. Bruch has something that not every commander has--a respect from his men that borders on awe. He has this respect because he is unafraid of getting his hands dirty. We were told by the guys that during the war phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Lt. Col. Bruch would frequently participate in raids and house-clearing, and that he was in the dirt with the men the entire time. We told him of the respect his soldiers have for him, and he blushed. It is a high compliment.
Dinner was wonderful, because Stephen’s wife, Kimmie, is a fantastic cook. Afterward, Captain Wiser presented my parents and I with copies of the company’s coin. They didn’t have one before Operation Iraqi Freedom, but now that they were back from duty, the company leadership had designed and produced a coin for the men. The obverse side of the coin has the company’s name (the “Gators”) and a big honking gator on it. The reverse side has around the edge the list of cities in which they fought; a picture of Iraq surrounded by the CIB emblem, the Strike emblem, and the black heart; and, in a show of honor that nearly brought me to my knees, my brother’s battle number (HU1144) is on a banner immediately under “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Captain Wiser said that this was done to honor my brother, and that this is a permanent thing.
I was pretty much speechless.
There is more--so much more--but I’m not going to write about it now, since between parts one and two I’ve almost written six pages of stuff. Know that my brother was greatly honored, and that my family and I are honored. Know also that there are no finer men on this earth than those who fight and die for us.
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