It’s that time of year again. Memorial Day weekend is the beginning of summer fun for most Americans, and as I’ve done before in this space, I want to pause to take note of the real reason there is a Memorial Day.
It’s meant to honor and pay our respects to those Americans who’ve given their lives in service to our nation, who stand in an unbroken line from Lexington’s rude bridge to Cemetery Ridge to the Argonne Forest to the beaches of Normandy to the frozen Chosin Reservoir to the Ia Drang Valley to the sands of Kuwait to the streets of Baghdad.
During the past 12 months, 1,042 soldiers, Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel have given their lives in the terrible duty that is war. Thousands more have come home on stretchers, horribly wounded and facing months or years in military hospitals.
This week, I’m turning my space over to a good friend and former roommate, Army Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, who recently completed a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and is now back at the Pentagon.
Here’s Bateman’s account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning. It first appeared on May 17 on the Web-log of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Web site.
“It is 110 yards from the ‘E’ ring to the ‘A’ ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.
“This hallway, more than any other, is the ‘Army’ hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other, G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not have seen each other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew. Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was not designed for this press of bodies in this area. The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares.
“10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.
“A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first class.
“Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the burden … yet.
“Now almost everyone lining the hallway is, like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran. This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The soldier’s chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.
“Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private, corporal or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.
“11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how stupid that sounds in my own head. ‘My hands hurt.’ Christ. Shut up and clap. For twenty-four minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway — 20, 25, 30. Fifty-three legs come with them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.
“They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals. Some are wheeled along. Some insist upon getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway, through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.
“There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war-bride pushing her 19-year-old husband’s wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have, perhaps more than their wounded mid-20s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son’s behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past. “These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years.â€
— Copyright 2007 by Robert Bateman; reprinted here by permission.
The five U.S. soldiers killed this week in the crash of a CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter in Afghanistan were members of the 82nd Airborne Division, officials said Friday.Â
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Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, said Thursday that 30 or more service members from the 82nd Airborne had been dropped off by the Chinook shortly before it went down late Wednesday. A Briton and a Canadian were killed along with the five Americans.
U.S. military officials said Thursday that initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, but that enemy fire was one of several possibilities.
Maj. Tom Earnhardt, a spokesman for the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based division, said Friday that investigators still don’t know why the helicopter crashed.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Chinook crashed on the first day of a new joint NATO-Afghan operation to force Taliban fighters out of parts of Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand Province, in the southern part of the country.
The American soldiers who were killed were part of a brigade that deployed earlier this year along with the division’s commanding general and his staff.
The identities of the soldiers were not immediately released by the military.
One of the soldiers killed was 33-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Chris Allgaier, his father Bob Allgaier told the Omaha World-Herald. His wife and three children live near Fort Bragg.
Allgaier’s family in Omaha, Neb., did not return phone calls Friday to The Associated Press.
Three of the division’s four infantry brigades — about 3,500 soldiers each — are overseas, and the fourth is scheduled to leave Fort Bragg this summer, leaving only a skeleton force at the sprawling post in eastern North Carolina.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 20 soldiers from the 82nd have died in Afghanistan, and 101 have died in Iraq.
ESTES THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer
May 30, 2007Â RALEIGH, N.C.
Panther Team,
As we enter the ninth month of our deployment in Iraq, the Panther team is busier than ever. Before I mention a few words about what our battalions have been up to, I would like to talk about the activities we have planned for All-American Week in Iraq. Unfortunately due to our daily mission requirements, we will not be able to celebrate our heritage as Paratroopers the way we usually do. Instead, on Saturday, May 26, 2007, we will celebrate All-American Day here at Contingency Operating Base Speicher. The day will begin with combat skills competitions and will end with a BBQ at the Brigade Headquarters. We will reflect on our pride as Paratroopers and the memory of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice here in Iraq and throughout the history of our great Division.Â
The situation in Iraq continues to be complex and ever-changing. Although we have had major breakthroughs, there have also been set backs. The key to our success lies in our ability to provide security for the Iraqi population in Salah Ad Din Province, develop the Iraqi security forces, and to assist the provincial government in the reconciliation process between the Sunnis in the province and the largely Shia central government.    Â
In April, Secretary Gates announced all active duty soldiers deployed to the CENTCOM area of operation will have their tours extended to 15 months. The extension will guarantee that the Brigade will spend 12 months back at Fort Bragg before its next deployment. The Paratroopers in the Brigade, along with everything else they do, took this news in stride and went about doing what they do best – accomplishing the mission.
The Paratroopers of 1-Panther have had a great deal of success in putting a dent into the oil smuggling activities at the Bayji Oil Refinery – the biggest refinery in Iraq. Bravo Company, led by Kwenton Khulman with 1SG Green by his side, has made a huge impact in turning the oil refinery around. Al-Qaeda has reacted violently to our efforts to cut one of their main sources of funding, but 1-Panther remains vigilant and continues to make progress everyday. Â
The Paratroopers of 2-Panther are working harder than ever trying to revitalize Samarra. Members of Al-Qaeda have been trying to assert their control over Samarra for the past two years and in the process have made life very difficult for normal Iraqis. Recently, these terrorists blew up the Police Station and killed the police chief – one of the most competent and courageous Iraqis we have worked with during our time in Salah Ad Din. However, the Paratroopers in 2-Panther, especially Charlie Company located at Patrol Base Olsen inside the city, have worked hard to restore order. The Iraqi government has decided to rebuild the Golden Mosque inside Samarra and we are working hard with our Iraqi partners to make this dream a reality. As you recall, on February 22, 2006, Al Qaeda destroyed the Golden Mosque and this terrorist act set off a spiraling escalation of sectarian tensions throughout the country. The rebuilding of this Mosque will go a long ways in healing the sectarian divide in Iraq.       Â
In Tikrit and surrounding areas, Task Force Loyalty has done a great job clearing out many insurgent and Al-Qaeda cells. In late March, the Paratroopers conducted an operation to clear the entire town of Ad-Dawr, just east of Tikrit, of all terrorist elements. The operation was dubbed “Operation Hershey.â€Â Terrorists in this town had tried to assert their control by destroying the police station, and intimidating anyone who worked with the Provincial Government and coalition security forces. Over a two week period, Paratroopers from TF Loyalty and their Iraqi counterparts, cordoned and cleared the entire town. As a part of our new focus on population security, they established a new operating base by Ad Dawr. Patrol Base Woodcock was named after one of our fallen heroes from Bravo Company, 2-Panther, part of Task Force Loyalty.        Â
Our recon squadron, 5-73 Cav, has had a great fight on its hands in Diyala. Along with 3BCT, 1st Cavalry Division, these Paratroopers have been fighting some of the most extreme elements of Al-Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency. They have established several new Joint Security Stations to be closer to the Iraqi population and as a result have put themselves in a much more dangerous environment. Our Paratrooper’s tenacity and courage has come to be known throughout Diyala and among the members of the other American units they serve with.   Â
Since my last report 5-73 Cavalry has paid a heavy price. They lost 17 great Paratroopers fighting some of the most ruthless terrorists in Iraq: PFC Orlando Gonzales, SPC Jason Nunez, SGT Jason Swiger, PV2 Anthony White, SPC Ebe Emolo, CPT Jonathon Grassbaugh, SPC Levi Hoover, PFC Rodney McCandless, 1LT Kevin Gaspers, SPC Jerry King, PFC Garrett Knoll, SSG Kenneth Locker, SGT Randell Marshall, SSG William Moore, SGT Brice Pearson, SPC Michael Rodriguez, SGT Michael Vaughn (5-73).  3-8, the Combined Arms Battalion, attached to us from 3rd BCT, 1st Cavalry Division lost two officers; 1LT Philip Neel and 1LT Andrew Bacevich. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the family and friends of these brave Warriors. These losses have only strengthened our resolve to accomplish our mission. We will continue to take the fight to the enemy and to provide security for the Iraqi people.
We are disappointed that we won’t get a chance to see our “Old Timers†this year, but look forward to seeing you when we get back!
              Â
                   All the Way!!
                   H-Minus!!
                   Panther 6
Military Town Mourns Nine Lost in Attacks
By Andrea Stone
USA Today
(April 27) – Army Sgt. William Fleming can still see the nine paratroopers hovering over him after the anti-tank mine blew out his eardrums and ripped him with shrapnel last November.
“When I got blown up, every one of them came and checked on me,” Fleming says, his voice quivering as his hands move to cover his face.
Now, every one of them is gone. On Monday, two suicide truck bombers attacked his reconnaissance scout unit’s outpost in Iraq . The explosion killed nine soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and wounded 20 others.
Together, their deaths represented the single deadliest day for the division since the fabled unit lost 12 paratroopers in Vietnam in June 1969. It was the worst day for U.S. forces in Iraq since Dec. 1, 2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines in Fallujah.
Gone was Spc. Michael Rodriguez, 20, a fourth-generation soldier who at age 4 marched behind his father’s Army Ranger unit and “played army” in a pup tent. Gone was Staff Sgt. William “Clint” Moore, who did Elvis impersonations and taught himself to play piano listening to Jerry Lee Lewis records. Gone was Sgt. Brice Pearson, who just two weeks ago re-enlisted.
At 19, Spc. Jerry King of Bowersville, Ga., was the youngest. Sgt. Kenneth Locker, 28, of Wakefield, Neb., was the only father, leaving three young children. Pfc. Garrett Knoll, 23, a medic from Bad Axe, Mich., was the newest member, having joined the unit last month.
Sgt. Randell Marshall, a 22-year-old from Fitzgerald, Ga., was a former rodeo bull rider and a “9/11-er” who signed up because of the terrorist attacks. Spc. Michael Vaughan, 20, of Otis, Ore., was a stocky ex-wrestler known around the unit as “the P.T. stud.” And there was 1st Lt. Kevin Gaspers, their 26-year-old platoon leader, who liked to fish and hunt but most of all loved the military.
“It’s overwhelming. I’ve lost friends before, but not like this,” says Fleming, 27, who is healing from wounds here. “It was your worst nightmare just come true. Grief. Disbelief. Shock. These guys are my brothers.”
Some in this tight-knit community outside Fayetteville say the tragedy underscores the war’s futility.
“Because this is a military community, we’re going to support (the war). But we don’t like it,” says Delores McLauchlin, 48, whose husband, Connie, is a retired career soldier. Their daughter is in Iraq, and their son will go later this year.
Even in a place where soldiers know they can be deployed anywhere in the world in 18 hours, the news from Diyala province on Monday was jarring. After all, 12,000 of the 82nd’s 18,000 soldiers are overseas. Another 3,500 are set to leave for Iraq this summer. Six thousand remain here, including rear detachments and injured soldiers sent home to recover.
Among them are Fleming and Sgt. Robert Fessler, 29, who left Iraq last month after re-injuring a shoulder torn in a parachute jump. Both were members of the devastated unit, Bravo Troop, 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team.
“I felt like I was a big brother to all of them,” Fessler says. “It makes me sick. I don’t know how to deal with it.”
Capt. John Carson, 33, the unit’s rear detachment commander here, believes he does. “We’ve been together training, living, breathing, jumping, sweating until right now. And we’ll continue to do that,” he says. “We’re going to come together, we’re going to pray.”
‘We’ll Emerge Stronger’
There isn’t a unit in the 82nd that has suffered a greater loss this year than 5-73 Cav. Of its 640 soldiers, 18 of its 20 killed in action since the unit arrived in Iraq in August died in 2007. That’s half the total for the entire division.
“Paratroopers tend to look at adversity a little differently,” says Maj. Tom Earnhardt, a division spokesman. “We’ll rally together. We’ll suffer through the grief, and we’ll emerge stronger. We always do.”
Even so, some are feeling the strain.
“I don’t think (the war) is going well,” says Connie McLauchlin, 53. “I don’t think we’re doing what the Army trained us to do, and that was defend the country. ”
Roseann Castro, 32, who is caring for three children while her husband, Jose, serves in Afghanistan , gets teary-eyed when asked about the nine slain paratroopers. She says she has mixed feelings about the war. “I don’t think it’s going too well, but I know if they all come home it’s probably going to be a worse problem,” she says.
“It’s a big loss in the 82nd. This is their home,” says Michael Casey, 38, of Fayetteville, a civilian who works in information technology at Fort Bragg’s Womack Army Medical Center. “For me, we want our people out. They’re laying their life on the line every day. Why? Well, that would be Bush’s agenda.”
Col. Dudley Neal, 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s chaplain, says he doesn’t hear much complaining about the war “because I’m dealing with people who are in the thick of what we’re dealing with, and they’re doing everything they can to support their family and friends.”
As he spoke, the war’s toll was made real just outside his window. A funeral detail of soldiers in T-shirts and shorts practiced folding an American flag over an imaginary casket. “The fact that we’re facing nine deaths, nine KIAs,” he says, means “there will probably be somebody out there practicing every day.”
Soldiers’ Strong Ties
By the time the suicide bombers hit Monday, most members of the 5-73 Cav had been together for two years. They’d helped found the unit as part of the Army’s new, more mobile brigade combat teams. Some had deployed in the first wave of troops sent to New Orleans to evacuate residents and patrol the streets after Hurricane Katrina .
After the unit arrived in Iraq last summer, they did a stint at Forward Operating Base Caldwell near Balad Ruz. Last fall, they began operations in the Diyala River Valley. In one nine-day assault in January, the 5-73 Cav killed more than 100 enemy fighters.
“It was very constant,” Lt. Col. Andrew Poppas, commander of the 5-73 Cav, says in a phone interview from Iraq on Thursday. “We were actively and aggressively patrolling” for insurgents.
The squadron really melded in mid-November during a 10-day firefight around the village of Turki, east of Baghdad . That’s when two young captains, John Dennison and Rhett Schiller, became the unit’s first casualties.
John Gaspers, Kevin’s father, says that when he last saw his son two weeks ago while he was home on leave, he was especially troubled over the death of Dennison. Kevin Gasper had sent pictures home showing the two together. During his visit home, his father says, the lieutenant wore a bracelet honoring Dennison and talked about him often. “Now they’re together again,” the father says.
In late February, the 5-73 Cav moved to a smaller outpost in Sadah as part of President Bush ’s “surge” strategy. They moved into a former school.
“In order to defeat an insurgency, you have to be out with the people,” Carson says. “We took the fight to the enemy.”
On Monday, the enemy struck first. About 3 p.m., the outpost began taking small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades from the south and east. Then, from the north, came the first explosives-laden dump truck. It crashed into a perimeter of concrete barriers, barbed wire and ditches, breaching it when it blew up.
A second truck then rammed the destroyed vehicle, dragging it to within 30 yards of the school before it exploded. The blast caused two walls on the building’s second floor to collapse on the soldiers inside.
“We have seen suicide bombers before but we had not seen anything of this magnitude,” Poppas says.
The second floor collapsed onto the first. Eight of those killed were in two rooms on the first floor. A ninth, who was evacuated and later died of his injuries, was outside the demolished rooms.
Survivors dug through the ruins with their hands. That afternoon, as the dead were being pulled from the wreckage, “We went right back out on patrol,” Poppas says. By Thursday, all but one of the injured soldiers had returned to duty. An insurgent group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility.
Leanne Benson says her brother, Clint Moore, “was a tough man. He wasn’t scared of anything. It seems like a man like that shouldn’t have been killed like that. He and his fellows were not given a chance to fight.”
‘Wanted to Get His Mission Done’
The Army notified the last family members on Wednesday. The casualty notification team assigned to Rodriguez’s family appeared on Lorie Southerland’s sandy front lawn in Sanford, N.C., at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Just the Friday before, her son Michael had called while she and his stepfather were out. He left a voice message, Southerland recalls. “He said he loved us and he’d talk to us soon.”
She spoke in the living room where she got the news, now crowded with friends and family who rushed here when they heard. Southerland says her son, who joined the Army in May 2005, re-enlisted for another five years when he was home on leave in January. “He couldn’t wait to get back. He missed his guys,” she says. “He wanted to get his mission done.”
The soldier’s father, George Rodriguez, says, “Some people may feel that it’s a mistake that we’re (in Iraq). Michael was not of that opinion. He was of the opinion that he was there to do something good, to do something honorable.”
Robert Pearson tried but failed to talk his son Brice into leaving the Army. “He said, ‘Well, Dad, I can’t explain to you what it’s like to go out to battle with your feet hanging out of a helicopter,’ ” Pearson says. “I said ‘Yeah, but what if you’re dead?’ He said, ‘Well, Dad, then I’ll be in heaven, and I’ll be OK.’ ”
Says the father: “Each day you come home and dread that someone’s going to be there, and Monday there was somebody here.”
Lorie Southerland will replace the blue star on her porch that signifies a military member in service with a gold star that says her home has made the ultimate sacrifice.
Through her tears, she tries to put her family’s loss in perspective.
“Our hearts are with the 5-73rdCavalry,” she says, “because even though we lost a son and a brother, they’ve lost nine.”