I guess I should be thankful I returned home in one piece. My sometimes snippy transmittals from theater sometimes hid a deep-seated misgiving that I was ultimately writing orders that may be sending men and women to their deaths.
Today, I had my farewell lunch with the guys at my old workplace, at the US Army Special Operations Command (or USASOC as the abbreviation goes). My boss, a lieutenant colonel, had mentioned that the Army is a small place. That statement is very apropos when I think of the bizarre run-ins that I've had with people I never thought I'd see again.
So, it's with no small sadness that I found out that three people I had personally met and worked with had died in Iraq, all on the same day.
I had met MAJ Matt Worrell almost a decade ago as he and I were lieutenants in the same cavalry squadron at Fort Hood, TX. Although I didn't spend much time around the aviation troops (the ground troops were geographically separated by a lengthy drive to Robert Gray Army Air Field), I worked with Matt very briefly as he was coming to the squadron operations section about the time as I was leaving to be the executive officer of Troop A. Matt was a capable officer and friendly, upbeat guy who was humble without being self-effacing, not something I normally associate with the air cavalry. Matt died 14 May in Yusufiyah, just south of Baghdad, when his AH-6 Little Bird was shot down.
CW4 John Engeman had worked for me when I was running a crew-served weapons training site at Fort Bragg for the 3d Battalion (Light), 116th Infantry. He was an amazingly down-to-earth maintenance warrant officer coming out of Germany and was slotted in the unit to advise a National Guard tank battalion. He would not advise that unit, as they were deployed, and ended up going to Iraq to fill a Special Police Transition Team. I worked day in and out with John for almost a month and a half on that mission., and remember him as willing to do whatever was necessary to get the job done, no matter how unpleasant. This is kind of unusual, as it entailed a lot of manual labor that I thought was incongruous for a very senior warrant officer. It seems so damn unfair that someone who was as close to retirement and life beyond the Army never got a chance to see it. John's vehicle was destroyed by an IED in Baghdad.
I did not get much of a chance to get to know MSG Robert West as I was outprocessing the 1st Battalion, 312th Regiment enroute to USASOC. I do remember one particular incident, where Charles Fennell, the battalion NCOIC and a fellow veteran of the 82d Airborne Division, had me stand with only the right side of my battle dress visible to MSG West. What the viewer can only see is rank and name. He couldn't see my senior parachutist badge or my armor brass on my left collar. MSG West thought I looked like an infantryman as I was wearing jungle boots, lightweight battle dress, and had a clean high and tight haircut. MSG West was a tanker by specialty - in theory of the same vein as me - but I haven't been on a tank by duty requirement in almost exactly a decade. MSG West died in the same IED strike with John Engeman.
All recollections aside - the sacrifices, sometimes ultimate, of servicemen and servicewomen who are risking their lives in this time of war, warrant some legitimate collective memory of their sacrifice. It strikes me as perfidious injustice that I have to turn to page 7 of the Fayetteville newspaper - a paper serving a city whose adjacent military bases (Fort Bragg and Pope AFB) have had troops continuously deployed to combat since 2001 or been witness to units springboarding from both of those installations to enter theater - for news on the war in Iraq. In the meantime, the results of some fucking show called American Idol occupy front page copy.
Most of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines entering the theater of war come back home. These three, though, did not, and the world is worse for their passing.
Rest in peace.
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