It has been a long time since I've last posted-I realize this and also submit the truthful adage, "No news is good news," in Afghanistan, but it's been a daily struggle of boredom and chaos, frustration and tranquil acceptance, and thankfully, the deployment clock doesn't stop to move the chains after a first down or incomplete pass. Lately, it has gotten brutally cold-Parwan Province is a frozen tundra of ice shappen mud, sharp and jagged, morphing under foot and scarred with the pattern of criss-crossed tire tracks. We've seen snow: a foot or two at a time, and for the day it falls it casts a peaceful gloss on this brutish land. When it snows, the screams of bombers' afterburners and the endless logistics caravan of C-17s is either muffled by the snow or completely halted if the visibility is so far reduced that is prevents takeoffs and landings. The snow falls, the dust in the air vanishes and the planes stand still. The almost nightly barrage of ludicrously poorly aimed insurgent rocket and mortar fire shot at Bagram is postponed to a later time. I think somewhere in our collective human genetics, the concept of the Snow Day is ingrained.
Fast forward to the next day-the skies are clear, the persistent dust cloud hanging in the valley and mountain passes hasn't yet returned, the fighters, bombers, and heavy transports are flying again, with hurried successive departures as if making up for lost time. The snow has melted and again turned the earth into a saturated clay bog with the tactile suction that will hold your boot treads firm as you lurch forward in place with statuesque movement below the knees when attempting to walk as if to challenge your very defiance of gravity. Today was one of those days. This weekend's snow has passed and with it brought the mud underfoot of this eleven year war.
Late last week, a Marine heavy lift CH-53 helicopter crashed in the western part of the country, in Helmand Province near the provincial capital of Herat, the ancient Macedonian fortress city built by Alexander the Great on his eastern conquests through the Persian Empire. The media reported it for a short while, it was mentioned in passing at our daily morning brief, but none here gave much thought to it. Working with Special Force soldiers who have lost many friends-six nameless Marines perishing in a helicopter crash is not something they tend to dwell on or invest much emotional energy into. The names of the fallen Marines were released today, I found out this morning in this article: Navy Times, one of them being Capt. Dan Bartle, USMC; United States Naval Academy Class of 2006. Capt. Bartle was more recently a husband and a father, but in earlier days, a Companymate of mine (25th Company) and a squadmate of mine when I was a Plebe, my first year at the Academy.
His role to me was that of mentor-responsible for instructing me on the ways of the Navy and the ways of the military, and was directly responsible for teaching me what I needed to know to fly under the radar of the upperclass and to pass my academic and military exams and keep me out of trouble. In short, he was my mentor at a time I needed one most. I remember he originally wanted to be a SEAL-but wasn't selected and instantly shifted his focus to becoming a Marine Pilot. He died last week doing just that. I've lost two friends from my old Company already-both in helicopter crashes, two years ago, another Companymate, 1stLt Aaron Cox, Class of 2005, died in a AH-1W Cobra training mission in the hills outside of San Diego.
Where these men will go now-pieces of their bodies recovered and returned to their families in blue-gray caskets, their souls to whatever their faith maintained as the final eternal resting place, and their names to the plaques lining the right most wall inside Memorial Hall, in the Rotunda of Bancroft Hall on the Yard in Annapolis. I'm not in an appropriate place right now to mourn the loss of a friend and a Companymate. Though I'm surrounded by others who have lost many friends themselves and many who may die themselves in future battles in places most Americans couldn't point to on a map or even pronounce aloud; the personal familiarity with death makes this is the last place on earth it might be ok to mourn. Reflection is best done in front of a mirror or on a warm beach front sand dune somewhere-but not on a mountaintop in Afghanistan surrounded by it. We were trained to lead men in combat and that's what Dan Bartle was doing with his last breath-this was our calling, this was our training, our mission, and our fate. I'll look for his name on the wall again in Memorial Hall when I return to teach at USNA in the summer-the same place I went years ago, late at night as a Midshipman looking for inspiration during a late night study break during final exam week. This has been a sad day, but I'm sure not the last. I will continue to look for inspiraiton in the same places-but inspiration has come at a price: less conceptual and now more personal.
Fast forward to the next day-the skies are clear, the persistent dust cloud hanging in the valley and mountain passes hasn't yet returned, the fighters, bombers, and heavy transports are flying again, with hurried successive departures as if making up for lost time. The snow has melted and again turned the earth into a saturated clay bog with the tactile suction that will hold your boot treads firm as you lurch forward in place with statuesque movement below the knees when attempting to walk as if to challenge your very defiance of gravity. Today was one of those days. This weekend's snow has passed and with it brought the mud underfoot of this eleven year war.
Late last week, a Marine heavy lift CH-53 helicopter crashed in the western part of the country, in Helmand Province near the provincial capital of Herat, the ancient Macedonian fortress city built by Alexander the Great on his eastern conquests through the Persian Empire. The media reported it for a short while, it was mentioned in passing at our daily morning brief, but none here gave much thought to it. Working with Special Force soldiers who have lost many friends-six nameless Marines perishing in a helicopter crash is not something they tend to dwell on or invest much emotional energy into. The names of the fallen Marines were released today, I found out this morning in this article: Navy Times, one of them being Capt. Dan Bartle, USMC; United States Naval Academy Class of 2006. Capt. Bartle was more recently a husband and a father, but in earlier days, a Companymate of mine (25th Company) and a squadmate of mine when I was a Plebe, my first year at the Academy.
His role to me was that of mentor-responsible for instructing me on the ways of the Navy and the ways of the military, and was directly responsible for teaching me what I needed to know to fly under the radar of the upperclass and to pass my academic and military exams and keep me out of trouble. In short, he was my mentor at a time I needed one most. I remember he originally wanted to be a SEAL-but wasn't selected and instantly shifted his focus to becoming a Marine Pilot. He died last week doing just that. I've lost two friends from my old Company already-both in helicopter crashes, two years ago, another Companymate, 1stLt Aaron Cox, Class of 2005, died in a AH-1W Cobra training mission in the hills outside of San Diego.
Where these men will go now-pieces of their bodies recovered and returned to their families in blue-gray caskets, their souls to whatever their faith maintained as the final eternal resting place, and their names to the plaques lining the right most wall inside Memorial Hall, in the Rotunda of Bancroft Hall on the Yard in Annapolis. I'm not in an appropriate place right now to mourn the loss of a friend and a Companymate. Though I'm surrounded by others who have lost many friends themselves and many who may die themselves in future battles in places most Americans couldn't point to on a map or even pronounce aloud; the personal familiarity with death makes this is the last place on earth it might be ok to mourn. Reflection is best done in front of a mirror or on a warm beach front sand dune somewhere-but not on a mountaintop in Afghanistan surrounded by it. We were trained to lead men in combat and that's what Dan Bartle was doing with his last breath-this was our calling, this was our training, our mission, and our fate. I'll look for his name on the wall again in Memorial Hall when I return to teach at USNA in the summer-the same place I went years ago, late at night as a Midshipman looking for inspiration during a late night study break during final exam week. This has been a sad day, but I'm sure not the last. I will continue to look for inspiraiton in the same places-but inspiration has come at a price: less conceptual and now more personal.
