365 and a Wakeup

A Change in Fortune

     In the soft light of morning a lazy breeze crossed the wet earth like a caress, leaving the FOB in tranquilized slow motion. Without the livid eye of the sun spurring them on soldiers slogged through the molasses thick fields like itinerant farmers, pausing every few steps to kick off thick clots of mud. A lazy wind pushed the empty clouds around like a child playing with a sheet of clay, in turns pulling apart and refashioning their translucent forms. The breaks between the clouds the sky glimmered with a soft corn flower blue whose reflection lent a nobility to the stagnant pools of water that littered the FOB like shattered glass. By mid morning this rare moment of meteorological mercy faded as the sun reclaimed his high throne. By midday the scorching rays burned away the clouds and the air became an ocean of heat.

     The atmospheric fluctuations seemed to mirror our last few weeks here, which have followed an erratic and wholly unexpected course. We have been conducting joint operations with the Iraqi Army for several weeks, but now they are moving out of our long shadow and starting to operate independently. Although the Iraqi Army lacks the sheer firepower the American Army can bring to bear they have their own unique strengths - not the least of which is they are Iraqis. The fact that the Iraqis are starting to provide for their countries future is the surest sign of the tidal changes sweeping the country. Although the shifting lines of authority has caused a wealth of changes in the Battalion it didn’t have too great an impact on my daily rituals.

     In my eyes the biggest change, a veritable tectonic shift in my small world, was news that in a few short months my future will shift in an unexpected direction. It’s too early to pull the curtains away from that particular secret, but suffice it to say that to my ears it was the brightest news I’ve heard on this deployment. Comparing that one ribbon of news to a tectonic shift is particularly apt, because in its shuddering aftermath months of planning tumbled down. The biggest shift involved my EML (Environmental and Morale Leave - i.e. the 15 days every soldier gets to spend back home). Instead of waiting until late August my leave date is now only a couple days away.

     With the sudden shift in dates I don’t have the luxury of planning elaborate activities, but to be honest I don’t really care. I don’t need fancy dinners, or brilliant vistas - all I want to do is to see my beautiful wife. When I called back to tell her that my leave date had been pushed up she was worried because my leave overlaps her semester finals. I laughed and told her the truth – that there is no place in the wide world I would rather be then sitting right next to her quizzing her on the nuances of microbiology. I don’t need to condense a years worth of life into two weeks, I just want a sliver of my old life back. 

Lifeblood

     Blood. The very syllables weave a sound that speaks to our fragile mortality.  A week ago there was enough of it to create a bitter aria; the sound is still rippling through the battalion.

     I wasn’t there when the explosion flared in front of LT Irish’s HMMWV, but I’ve relived the scene a hundred times in my minds eye. Looking into my friends eyes I can see the after image like the soft aftermath of a flashbulb. Listening to his story I can almost taste the ugly cocktail of copper and cordite that would follow such a vicious blast. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t feel the searing heat. I didn’t watch the transparent armor crackle under the merciless shrapnel. I didn’t cradle a wounded man and fight to keep him alive. I didn’t - through sheer will - drive a crippled HMMWV back to our FOB, only to have it finally burn to the ground in a fiery pyre at our very gates.

     I haven’t been able to write about the incident, the ragged wound it left was too tender. What happened that day on that nameless Iraqi road was every soldier’s worst nightmare brought to glaring life – a point blank IED. It took a millisecond, a snippet of time to small to be perceived, for the IED to lash the HMMWV with a tidal wave of explosive energy. The armor weathered the hypersonic onslaught and somehow LT Irish had the presence of mind to snap his driver into action. With the thunderous blast still reverberating off the canyon of buildings, the driver punched the accelerator to open the distance between the vehicle and the blast site. They couldn’t have known it then, but their vehicle was crippled and quickly spilling its lifeblood onto the pavement. The vehicle wasn’t the only casualty. One murderous fragment had slipped past the armor, a fragment that struck the gunner, SGT Ferguson.

     As the vehicle staggered back to the FOB LT Irish worked feverishly to care for SGT Ferguson. His focus was so keenly focused on SGT Ferguson he never realized the damaged vehicle was charring his leg. With the vehicle dying around him and every light on the panel screaming in electronic agony SGT Ski stayed the course and pulled his HMMWV to the FOB gates. He only stepped out when the vehicle shuddered to a stop and burst into a blistering bonfire.

     As I write this LT Irish is still recovering from the deep burns etched in his leg and SGT Ferguson is laying in a hospital bed in Bethesda, Maryland. For the last week our entire battalion has been praying for SGT Ferguson as he struggles for survival. His family is fighting a battle of their own, struggling to deal with the financial burden of staying at SGT Ferguson’s side. To deal with the wholly unexpected and quickly mounting costs of airfare, lodging, and cross country phone calls a trust fund has been set up for SGT Ferguson’s family. Donations can be made to:

                              SGT James Matthew Ferguson

                        Washington Mutual 325 East F St. Suite A

                                      Oakdale, CA 95361

Filling in the Blanks

Most of my next few posts won't show up as "new" - they cover some of the period I didn't have an opportunity to write.  Just scroll down to find them.

Transformation

All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.
                       --Henry David Thoreau

     The day before last the temperature soared, the temperature spiking in the triple digits. Although the air was thick with heat the real misery came from the unforgiving glare of the desert sun. As the hard rays poured down like an incandescent waterfall the FOB became a very different place.  Soldiers still moved across the FOB, but the meandering paths of spring were replaced by dagger straight lines that minimized the distance between buildings. The only superfluous movement was the distorted atmospheric dance of air boiling off of tin roofs.

     My fevered prayers for cooler weather were answered that same evening by a hard wind from the north. The first few breaths of air carried the promise of cooler temperatures, but hard on the heels of those first hopeful gusts came flurries of powdered sand.  The wind continued picking up, and as it did the air congealed with ever larger pieces of the desert floor. As night closed in on the FOB the dusty air blotted out the stars and hid the soft light of the moon.  When I was new to driving a friend mentioned that amber lenses helped cut through the fog.  That little driving tip was wildly inaccurate, but years later and half a world away I had to laugh at how well that optical trick simulated a desert sandstorm.  

     By morning the wind had died, leaving behind a somber carpet of grey clouds.  As the day progressed they lost their mute uniformity and started to writhe and darken. By nightfall the first drops started falling.

     By morning the clouds were dark bloated udders dumping sheets of rain on the FOB. Within minutes the feeble dust became a thick mass of clotted mud. The glutinous mud befouled everything it touched, even short trips left our high necked boots with thick soles of stubborn mud. 

     So in the space of two days we were blistered, sandblasted, and then suffered through a muddy deluge.  As wild as those climactic shifts were they couldn’t hold a candle to the sweeping changes going on within our AO (Area of Operations). In these last few days fate has been painting with a very broad brush.  But more on that later…

Not All Heros...

I have mentioned it before but it bears repeating, not all the heros in this war carry a rifle.  I received this message from Mrs. Anne Watkins yesterday:

    Hello to all who may see this wonderful site. I am CPL Glenn Watkins wife. I am so proud of him. I am angry sometimes that I must go on in this world with out him! But when I take myself out ot the picture I see the most wonderful human being. I see a man not afraid to do what was right! to fight! To give freedom to a nation that was in bondage! Everyday I long to tell him how proud I am of him. When you soldiers or civilians read this know that CPL Watkins is with God and that he is truly happy and at peace. And that one day we will see this great man. This loving man whom I will miss till I see him again. Thanks to all who leave kind thoughts and prayers.

             Mrs. Anne Watkins

     Thank you Mrs. Watkins. You will always, always be a part of the Nightstalker family.

Baghdad's Crown Jewel

     Today I had a chance to visit the crown jewel of Baghdad’s growing infrastructure – the southern Baghdadpower station. The power station is actually four separate power plants, each a geometrically precise cube of struts, cable, pipes and machinery. If you squint your eyes they almost look like a prop from Star Trek – some engineers poor attempt at creating a living testament to the fictional Borg. The plants were all manufactured to the same specifications, but only two of the four are providing power. You can tell which two are functional because they spew a thick fog of black smoke from their oversized smokestacks and from a hundred leaking pipes. Years of running the functional power plants on thick crude have left their exposed surfaces coated with a thick blanket of ebony soot. The stained machinery combined with the billowing smoke give the overall impression that you are looking at a scene straight out of Dante’s “Inferno” – these structures are so devoid of any beauty they make their broken twins look practically new.

     By time I arrived we still had an hour of daylight, and when one of the NCOs offered to give me a tour of the site I gladly agreed. We started by walking underneath one of the towering smokestacks that stretched into the sky like a concrete sequoia tree. We circled around the concrete behemoth and slipped into one of the power plants under repair.

     As we descended into the dank subterranean maze under the plant the air grew cool and still. The concrete rooms we passed through had a blank utilitarian quality to them and as we continued deeper into the bowels of the plant an unnatural stillness pooled in the shadowed recesses.  At one time this place thrummed with life but now the endless rows of machinery sat motionless, pipe junctions slowly seeping some reeking fluid into dark pools. After passing through several claustrophobic hallways we stepped into yawning cavern that resembled a rusted snake pit – the floor was awash in old pipes that splayed out in random patterns. Everything in that room looked corroded and sick, it was as if the whole chamber was a malignant mechanical cancer that needed to be excised before the plant would once again cough back to life. We decided to turn around then, and made our way back to the ground level and into the gathering twilight. Our next stop took us to the nerve center of the giant complex, the control room.   My first impression of the control room was that I had stepped into a movie set from some 1960’s action film. The computers weren’t old, they were nonexistent.  The entire room flickered with the dim light of a hundred dials and buttons that canvassed each wall like a pox. The only interface with the confusing array of blinking lights were several mechnical gauges and two digital displays with numbers highlighted in a fire engine red. I remember my Dad bringing home one of the first commercial calculators shortly after they came onto the market - the red screens in front of me looked like they had been pasted from that same memory. That same 25 year old memory. 

     The staff manning the control room wore matching blue jumpsuits stained with thick coats of grease and oil and lounged around like Arabic versions of Homer Simpson. They were happy to see us, if for no other reason then to break up the dreary monotony of their day.  We used a mixture of bad Arabic (on our part) and bad english (on their part) to talk about their positions at the plant, but the conversation quickly devolved into a cross cultural game of charades.  After a few confusing minutes we gathered together to take pictures. As we snapped away the Iraqis were all smiles, but as we walked away one of the technicians approached with an urgent look on his face. As he caught up he said “No photograph – Fallujah” with a crackling voice, emphasizing his point by drawing his finger across his neck. I looked back at him, perplexed by his choice of words and unsure just what he meant. As he turned to his friend to ask for help in translating I was able to pickup enough of the Arabic to know that he was worried the insurgents would see the picture and hurt his family in Fallujah.  I walked up to him and placed both my hands on his shoulders, pausing a long moment until I locked his gaze to my own.  Then I slowly shook my head back and forth to signify that I would not release the photos. As I stepped away I watched the trembling engineer practically collapse with joy. Apparently the message was understood. 

     Having finished our control room visit we stepped into the oversized room that held the giant turbines.  Since the turbines were still under repair the giant hatchet bladed assembly was neatly dissected like some gargantuan alien worm, allowing a virtual x-ray of its complex inner workings. Everything about the structure seemed oversized.  Thick cables the width of a mans thigh bunched on the floor in fat coils while obscure metal parts surrounded the main assembly like an asteroid belt of machined metal. We spent a few minutes looking around at the complex collection of parts, moving on only when the last streamers of daylight left the tall windows.

     We decided to make our way up the tangled infrastructure before evening gained any more of a foothold and started our way up the maze of catwalks and ladders,  As we walked up the skinny metal framework you could feel the oily residue underfoot. The thin sheen of oil wasn’t thick enough to be seen in the fading light, but it could be felt with every step – like walking through a greasy roadside restaurant.

     After half climbing, half sliding our way to the top of one of the immense power stations we were rewarded with a birds eye view of southern Baghdad.  Curfew was still hours away, so the roads shimmered with countless headlights and the bright, almost inviting lights of bustling households. It was a beautiful thing to behold, made doubly so by the soft reflection of the winding Tigris River. We looked around for a few quiet minutes before snapping a few pictures and clambering back down our original route to the warm lights of my hosts makeshift home. 

A Winding Road

    To untrained eyes our armored HMMWVs are ugly beasts.  Their squat lines and hard angles are bereft of loveliness, their form shaped only by a cruel fusion of geometry and ballistics.  But to a soldier they are beauty incarnate - their thick slabs of armor swaddle our troops in an armored cocoon.  They are cold, inanimate pieces of steel but its hard not to anthromorphize them, especially when their adamantine panels absorb the hellish blasts of IEDs. 

     Our LMTVs (Light Medium Tactical Vehicles) are like creatures borne under another sun – they lack the thick armor and ballistic glass of our HMMWVs in their “natural” state. Their form matches their function, they were designed to carry cargo across the most grueling terrain and give their drivers a unmatched view of the surrounding terrain. The expansive windows that provide those enviable views are an enormous liability here in

     The hard part isn’t getting them armored, it’s getting them to one of the locations where expert crews can perform their mechanical metamorphasis. Under normal circumstances the mission falls to even larger armored trucks called HETTs, hulking behemoths capable of towing anything smaller then a minor planet. But when an last minute opportunity came up to get one of LMTVs armored at an LSA (Logistical Support Area) it was an offer we couldn’t pass up – even if we had to drive the vehicle up ourselves. 

     Putting the mission together fell on the shoulders of MAJ Hog, our BN XO (Executive Officer). To provide extra security on the drive north the MAJ put together an impressive array of gunship support from across the BN. But even after the assets had been laid on there was still one question left unanswered – who would travel up with the thin walled LMTV? Rather then task one of his soldiers with driving this virtual IED magnet the Major volunteered to take the vehicle north.  Taking that position would rob the convoy of its commander - so before I had a chance to catch myself I volunteered to take his place in the LMTV.  A heartbeat after I volunteered my maintenance chief, CW2 Galapagos volunteered to take the other seat.  The decision would keep our soldiers safely ensconced in the uparmored HMMWVs and allow the Major to perform the complex tasks of command and control - and so the die was cast.

     I spent the night before the mission lying awake in my hard little bed unable to sleep.  The LMTV wasn’t completely unarmored, the vehicle had welded steel plates we call “Hill Billy Armor” affixed to its doors.  But those cavernous windows were what sent a shudder down my spine – in my mind’s eye I could see the windows spiderwebbing as fragments blindly searched for meat. After a couple of hours staring at the ceiling I needed to desperately needed to break out of my shadowed brooding. I went back to the office and started writing letters to my wife and family, trying to prevent my black mood from bleeding into the letters.

     And then it was time to cast off. The column set off in the dim half light of early morning but the crawling in my stomach stayed latched on like a loathsome parasite.  As we left the wire I focused the anxiety, drawing a measure of strength from the nervous tension.  Chief looked three shades paler then I had ever seen him, as I looked across the cab a small part of me felt relieved to see that I wasn’t suffering alone. 

     As we slipped through the swelling ranks of Iraqi vehicles the vise grip on my heart slowly eased – replaced by an almost preternatural awareness off the ebb and flow of early morning traffic.  The lead vehicle moved through traffic like a icebreaker, forcing civilian vehicles to the roads periphery to buy our vehicle some measure of safety.  The convoy looked like a fluid ship making its way through a brightly hued ice field, waves of vehicles breaking and reforming around our convoy.  Watching the kaleidoscope of vehicles flow around our convoy was almost mesmerizing. 

     As Baghdad faded behind us the terrain opened into sprawling fields of green.  After weeks of traveling in the urban maze of Baghdad I was awed by the emerald landscape. The harsh rainstorms that left us wallowing in mud had fed these beautiful pastures and created a world apart from our dingy little FOB. Nestled in the unkept fields was something I never expected to see in Iraq – vineyards. Perfectly coifed vines snaked through the carefully arranged lattices with a lilting melody.  As the image splashed across my retina I wasn’t looking at Iraq – I was looking back at another life far from these bitter roads.  A life where I walked through another vineyard half a world away and fell madly in love with my wife.  For a moment the sheer force of that bright memory flared in my consciousness with a sun bright perfection. As it faded I felt deflated, reminded once again of how very far we are from home. I wanted to blink out, to close my eyes and recapture that time and drown in that memory.  But this wasn’t the time to indulge in memories, so I forced down the memory and snapped back to a blank hypervigilance.

     The rest of the trip slid by, a mish mash of agricultural regions flowing one into the other until we arrived. The armoring shop was a vast wilderness of parts and bustling crews who moved in choreographed ease. We dropped off the LMTV for armoring and split up to conduct the rest of our missions. The LSA is a enormous place – a virtual city complete with bustling stores and gangly playing fields. By days end our tasks were completed and our motley collection of vehicles were overflowing with supplies and equipment.  As we readied to return home our convoy was ordered to stand down due to some unspecified threat.  The mission was rescheduled for the following evening so we dutifully returned to some empty rooms in a half empty building and slipped into a welcome sleep. 

     The next day was unlike any other – with or missions completed and equipment prepped there was nothing left to do but wait. Empty days are cosmically rare events and unlike our homely little FOB this miniature city was swimming with creature comforts.  With time to burn our soldiers fragmented into small groups – all intent on savoring some of the LSAs recreational facilities.  Somehow we all independently arrived at the same piece of real estate, the Olympic size pool that glistened invitingly like a aquamarine jewel. The pool resembled Spring Break more then it did a warzone – soldiers were laughing and swimming while a DJ played 80’s songs from one corner of the facility. For a few hours it didn’t feel like we were soldiers, we were like a bunch of kids taking their first trip to the local pool. Any residual tension, any bitter regret washed away in those cool waters.

     And then, all to quickly, it was over. We donned our gear and returned to our all too familiar equipment and left this happy little corner of Iraq. As we finished up double and triple checking equipment a few soldiers were complaining about how good these soldiers had it here in the LSA. Their jealousy was only natural, this place was a virtual resort compared to our dusty home. But I didn’t share their rancor, I was just happy to have had the chance to be enveloped in that aquatic paradise.  As I rode back to our FOB, now safely wrapped in the back seat of an armored HMMWV, I kept thinking back to how it felt to dive into those inviting waters .  That thought carried me all the way home.

Iraq.  Therefore all our LMTVs are little more then “FOB Queens”, vehicles destined to orbit within the narrow orbit of our walled compounds.  That is until they are upgraded with their own custom made armored cabs.  There is no mistaking a fully uparmored LMTV, after the all encompassing upgrades the vehicle cab more closely resemble the space shuttle then any vehicle you might find rolling along America’s byways.  Engirdled with state of the art armor the LMTVs become valuable tactical assets – more then capable of delivering their crew and cargo to any location on the battlefield they may be needed. 

Pagentry

     Yesterday afternoon LTC Tomahawk voice rang out in the hallway “LT Thunder”. I sprinted down the hallway, careful to skid to a stop with just enough room to walk into the office at a measured pace. Before I had a chance to report the commander looked up and said “LT – you will be traveling with me to the raid tonight. We will leave NET (No Earlier Then) 0300 in the morning.  I suggest you get some rest.” As soon as he finished he turned back to finish up some mission planning. As I wandered back to my office my mind tried to unravel just why I would be moving out with the command element on the biggest raid of the year. We had been planning this coordinated raid for the better part of a month and although I had offered to move with some of the lead elements I had been told I would be staying in the TOC. By time I made it back to my office I was no closer to figuring out why the mission changed – I was just happy that it did.

          I spent the next hour double checking my body armor and weapons and prepping my gear for the early morning mission. The IBA armor is a modular system that allows soldiers to clip on a riot of pouches and equipment to help them accomplish specific missions. Since this would be early morning raid I was weighted down by 30 round magazines for my M4 rifle, extra 9mm magazines, a smoke grenade, and a host of specialized NVG (Night Vision Goggles) equipment. With everything anchored to my vest and all my equipment checked out I headed over to my room and caught a couple of hours of sleep. 

     I woke up close to midnight and started armoring up. I started by putting on a fresh set of DCUs.  It is still early Spring here in the desert but the heat has flared like an overheated matchbook.  Our uniforms bear the brunt of our bodies frenzied attempts at dumping heat, in the course of a normal patrol our DCUs become saturated with sweat and dirt.  As the grimy mixture evaporates you are left with a uniform marred by patches of greasy earth and white rings of salt.  We’ve come to ignore the dirt as a cost of doing business, but I wanted a fresh uniform.  I couldn’t stop a brutal splinter from ripping through my body but I didn’t want to help it by giving it a chance to carry the infectious dirt through my veins.

     Once my uniform was on I started donning my gear with practiced ease.   First on was the boots – their tan lines marked with fat black letters indicating my blood type  Then I strapped on my boot knife, a gift from my father in law that never rests more then an arms reach away. After it nestled against my calf I moved to the heavily padded kneepads whose gouged faceplate carry the physical memory of my impacts with the shattered urban rock.   Next up was my sidearm, the comically underpowered Beretta 9mm pistol the Army made standard issue more then a decade ago. I tightened up the thigh rig until it latched to my leg like a thermoplastic barnacle and finally came to the bulky IBA (Interceptor Body Armor) with its life saving ceramic plates. The IBA can be a curse – it is heavy and restricts your trunk movement to stiff movement that resemble the tin man.  But in payment for its cumbersome weight it imparts a superhuman physical and mental carapace.  When the sky is split by the supersonic crack of incoming rounds the armor offers its armored skin in payment for your own - which can add considerably to any soldiers peace of mind.  Then I took my kevlar helmet in hand and walked to the TOC.

     And then I waited.  Normally I can bury any pre mission jitters under a thick blanket of work.  But it was 0100 in the morning and other then the TOC personnel busily compiling the thickets of incoming radio traffic there wasn’t much to be done. I started some coffee and by time the pot was brewed we were loading the vehicle and starting our PCIs (Pre Combat Inspections).

     As we pulled out of the wire I peered through the NVGs at the desolate roads. We were moving in the midst of Baghdad’s all encompassing curfew and everything seemed vacant and still.  We traveled in a wide loop towards our staging area and then broke off the road into a tenebrous field. The vehicles lurched across the broken landscape like ungainly animals, occasionally throwing up gouts of stinking mud.  The drivers were hunched over as if moving closer to the armored windows would somehow help them discern images in the green haze of the NVGs, but the mud seemed to swallow any trace of light. For those without NVGs there was little to do but to rock with the tumbling gait of the vehicles like a sailor riding out a violent storm. 

     The vehicles came to rest in a tight circle, and as the troops dismounted and moved to secure the perimeter the gunners wheeled their armored turrets back and forth to provide overwatch. Once the vicinity had been visually cleared by the recon troops everyone condensed into a tight cigar shaped formation in the space cordoned off by the gunships. Every soldier took a knee and focused on reaching their senses for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. The only sound was the grease slicked slide of the armored turrets as they scanned the muddy expanse.

     And then LTC Tomhawk’s booming voice ripped the through the silence “LT Thunder6 – Post”.

     The voice wasn’t a request, it was a command, and I was on my feet before I could process the words. I slipped past the tangle of ankles to the center of our tight little formation and came to a halt in front of the commander. I stood there in front of LTC Tomahawk unsure of whether I should take a knee again, but since he was standing I remained standing there in front of him.  And then the CSM’s (Command Sergeant Major) voice rang out “Attention to orders!”.  In the twilight the voice seemed to wash over our little formation and I found my left arm reflexively snapping to my side. Then in a quicksilver flash LTC Tomahawk pulled out his knife and cut off my LT rank as the CSM read the orders awarding me my Captain’s bars.

     LTC Tomahawk made quick work of my old rank with his blade, and by time the order had been read he was pinning the rank to my armored mantle and onto my collar. As he finished pinning the rank the LTC half whispered “take a knee”.  Once I had dropped to one knee he pulled out his tomahawk and gently placed it on my left shoulder.  Then he told everyone assembled “he kneeled a lieutenant, now he rises a Captain” and helped me to my feet.

     There was no pageantry in that wretched field. Truth be told there were few witnesses – all eyes were scanning for contact.  But I wouldn’t have traded the rugged midnight ceremony for any amount of pomp and circumstance.  For an instant that wretched field was nobler then any parade ground - war be damned.

A True Warrior

     CPL Watkins, like many of us, left behind a message to be read if he didn't make it home safely.  He left it with his best friend, who honored us all by reading it during the memorial ceremony.  Here is the man in his own words:

Please do not despair nor grieve for me. Be proud and talk highly of me for I have done what I was called to do. As a young boy watching "The Green Berets" with John Wayne, I knew a life in the military was my life and possibly my death. I feared not the unknown and so I set forth on this journey knowing full well what it might mean. I must go for now, stand firm and take up this fight. Oh yes, I intend to fight hard for I have reason to come home. If you are reading this, then you know I have failed at my task. Only life threw me a curve, a man seldom has a choice in the manner of his death. It is only the manner in which he lives that is a mark of a true warrior.”

Lahaim

     The afternoon of CPL Watkins memorial service was framed by a gunmetal sky. As soldiers gathered in tight knots of grief the pregnant clouds rolled overhead, pushed along by unsteady gusts of wind. The memorial took place on the FOB basketball court, a utilitarian patch of concrete on the edge of a field surrounded by dust and dried mud. The centerpoint was a simple memorial built on a neat stack of sandbags lying in the center of the court.  The memorial included CPL Watkins weapon with bayonet, his Kevlar helmet, his boots, and his dog tags, all flanked by two framed pictures of better and brighter days. To the right of the memorial the American flag and our Battalion colors flapped slowly in the breeze. To the left of the memorial sat CPL Watkins commanders, from squad leader to Battalion Commander, all there to pay their respects. 

     In the minutes leading up to the memorial approached soldiers formed into tight formations and then on command filed into the bleachers and folding seats with oil slick precision. During the memorial CPL Watkins commanders and best friends provided a glimpse into just how great a man we had lost. For those who knew him it was a reminder of how much he had brought to their lives. For those who didn’t know him it was an insight into a man of courage whose humor and warmth lessened the pain of being so far from home. 

     The best words I could craft pale in light of the powerful words our Battalion Commander used in summing up CPL Watkins. I will leave with an excerpt of LTC Tomahawk’s eulogy:

Lahaim.

In the words of his creed I welcome you to this honoring of the life and service of Glenn Watkins. Corporal of Infantry. Late of 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, A Company, 1-184 Infantry Air Assault. Lahaim in Hebrew means to life and this indeed is a fitting welcome. Life, if you know how to use it is long enough. If you do not no amount of time will suffice to make your mortal passage worthy of the glory all real men seek. Glenn Watkins’ life was long enough. He was a father who raised four children to honorable adulthood. The proof of this is how they are using their lives. AAA and JJJ his oldest are currently under arms for this great nation. AAA in the 82nd Airborne Division. JJJ enlisted in the US Navy. LLL his middle child is a new recruit in the Israeli Civil Defense Forces. JJJ his youngest will soon finish high school. Armed with the best examples in life that American culture has to offer. He was a quiet man, but we remember him for his humor. He was Jewish but he loved Christian rock and roll. He was a soldier, but he was no warmonger. He was lowly in rank, but his leadership, bearing, and sacrifice serve as the perfect model for every soldier here gathered today. Glenn lived long enough to do all of this and more. He requited his duties as a man of God, a father, a friend, a leader, a soldier with shining honor. He accomplished his purpose. We loved him. We will always, always honor the life he shared with us and try to emulate it. Because yes, we miss him, because he made us better. Like a beacon. We will use his life to help us navigate through our own.