Home is where every soldier wants to be’ says Colonel, yet duty bound, they ‘soldier on’ when extended

Click on image for related coverage

EDITOR’S NOTE: In February 2007, Col. Les Swartz sent this personal e-mail to a group of friends and it was forward to the Witness by Jacksonville native U. S. Army Cpt. Christian Lightsey. We contacted Col. Swartz and he gave us permission to share it with our readers. He has been a member of Columbia Street Baptist Church (ABC) in Bangor, Maine, 40 years.

If you have been watching the news then you know that much has happened in the past week. According to the papers, over 3,000 soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division, the Division I have served with for the past 10 months, have been “extended” in Afghanistan for four months. We are “surging” forces into both Iraq and Afghanistan, and indeed I have a colleague from our Minnesota mill, whose National Guard unit is among those being extended in Iraq.

SWARTZ

His email telling me was short—empty of words, but full of meaning. Without saying the actual word “discouraged,” I could “read” it in his tone, feel it in the three or four sentences, sense the tiredness. But in the end he, and the others will “soldier on” as they used to say—a phrase that might not be understood except in a circumstance such as this.

The word “extended” is a dreaded one for those who serve in these wars, not because we fear to stay, but because we want to see home. Home is why we are here, home is why we bring the battle to this place instead of letting it be brought to New York or Washington.

“Home” is where every soldier wants to be more than anywhere, but we are here because it is our sworn duty “...to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, both foreign and domestic….” That is why we are here.

So how do I tell you about these soldiers who have been “extended?” How do I explain the courage of their hearts and the discipline of their training? How do I open their world to you just enough to glimpse what was referred to in olden days as the “glory” of being a soldier?

Until Friday I would not have known, but I witnessed something that night that may help you understand these soldiers who serve you here, ensuring there is no place for these terrorists to take root again in this land.

For the soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division, their twelve months were almost complete when the extension order was announced. Indeed, some were already back at Fort Drum, and others by the hundreds in Kuwait. In those places far from here they heard the word that they had not wanted to hear—“extended.” And as their officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) broke the news, every current and future leader in each unit “leaned forward” to strengthen those around them and encourage them in the fulfillment of their duty. Strengthening them to overcome disappointment, anger, discouragement, fear—all the emotions that must be defeated if a unit is to flourish and be able to fight. And overcome they did, by the hundreds they turned their faces from home and back towards Afghanistan and their duty.

Many soldiers in these returning units have flowed through our base on their way back into the country. On Friday it was my honor to fly with some of them on one leg of that journey back to their stations of duty.

In Bagram, I was waiting in the passenger terminal for a flight back to Sharana. About an hour before our flight was due to lift off, the room was suddenly flooded with about fifty 10th Mountain Division soldiers. Infantry. Veterans. Young as they were, “veteran” was written all over them. It showed in how they carried themselves, in the combat patches on their right shoulders, in how comfortable they were with the arms and armor that they wore, in the packs that they carried—packs with no pillows or sneakers hanging off the back. Instead shotguns or bedrolls hung there—these men had just left the country a week before; they were no strangers to what was important to carry.

For the most part they were silent but not sullen. Subdued but not defeated. Disappointed but not discouraged. They were soldiers in every sense of the word, and many had engaged with the enemy already, despite their young ages. They sat in the terminal with us for the remaining hour before the flight, and then the manifest was called and we all donned our armor and helmets and grabbed up our weapons and bugout bags and headed for the busses. My Command Sergeant Major (CSM) and I were among the first on the manifest, so we ended up at the back of the bus, where we watched the young men file out of the terminal into the night. The busses filled and off we went, driving out to the line of C-130’s. The CSM and I spoke with a few of the soldiers around us, sensing both their disappointment as well as their discipline. As they filed off the bus, one NCO stayed behind to make sure that no equipment was accidentally left on board. As I passed him I said, “I’m sorry you guys had to come back.” His response was immediate and firm—“This is what we do, Sir.” This is what we do.” Nothing more need be said.

The plane was absolutely full of cargo and men, men jammed together with packs and gear right up to the last seat. Everyone had their bugout bag in front of their legs, so there was no room to shift around. The red cloth sling-seats on a C-130 are nothing to write home about (ironically here I am writing home about them), but they take a load off your feet on the hour-long flight in the dark.

After taxiing to a stop, four headlights shown into the rear of the plane and nearly took my breath away as I saw, illuminated from behind by the lights, a full U.S. flag hanging from the ceiling of the cargo bay. From my position in front, I had a full view down the double row of seated Soldiers, with the flag behind them hanging straight down in all of its glorious colors. If you know me, you know what that flag means to me, and what the sight of it can stir in my heart. I tapped CSM Luce and pointed to the flag, and was in complete agreement as he called it a “signature moment.” It was indeed, and I will remember it all my life.

Without talking, without shouting, without confusion, they stood one by one and moved towards the ramp. In a civilian airliner everyone jumps up into the aisle when the seatbelt light goes off. And then they stand there because there is no where to go yet. Not in this plane—not with these men. None stood until a wave of the loadmaster’s arm signaled that the way was clear past the remaining pallets. Each sat patiently waiting his turn, and when the man in front of him moved out each stood up, grabbing his pack and weapon and heading out into the moonlit night. They made a steady stream of men moving out of the plane and towards the three waiting five-ton cargo trucks. At the trucks they split into three groups without direction or verbal orders. Some were already in the back, catching bags tossed up from the ground and packing them in the front of the truck bed. Others, now freed of their burdens, clambered up into the back, still wearing their armor, helmets, and weapons—an extra 30 pounds to lift against gravity as they ascended five feet up into the vehicles.

Within fifteen minutes of landing the cargo pallets had been taken out by the forklift, the men and their packs were loaded into the trucks, and the C-130 revved its engines (which had never shut down) and took off without lights into the night sky. For much of the operation I stood in the dark just watching—observing by moonlight the skill of these young men who had just left this base a week ago on their way “home.” And now as I watched them return to Afghanistan without murmur or complaint, with speed and discipline, I was proud to be able to see them on that night in the middle of a country so far from home, so far from where they would rather be. Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division.

So when you fret about the youth of America, when you hear on the news that we are “losing” this war, when you wonder about these soldiers who serve you here, remember this story and picture it in your mind. Remember these disciplined men as they “extend” back to Afghanistan, and the skill, courage, and ability that they showed me that night. Do not pity them because they have been extended—honor them because they take it in stride and “soldier on.” Serve THEM by never forgetting that they are there so you or YOUR brother or son or father or sister or mother doesn’t have to be. … Upholding the honor of their oaths, of their units, and of their courage. Extended courage.

Col. Les Swartz
240th Engineer Group
Maine Army National Guard
Formerly Commanding [FOB Sharana]