Every Memorial Day, I pause and think about those comrades
who died while deployed. One sticks in my mind. We desperately tried to get him
to medical treatment on time. He bled out as we carried him across the FOB in
makeshift litter made of a poncho, his bootheels cutting grooves which collected
his blood. On this day we honor him and all those like him that perished in the
service of their country. I also think of Howie.
Howie served in a subordinate unit. He did so with great
efficiency and as required, bravery. During this deployment, we pursued a very aggressive
set of operations designed to subdue Al Qaeda in Iraq, often known as AQI. In
these operations, we sought to synchronize multiple services, and nations. We
endured many stretches of uninterrupted labor, inside and outside the wire,
often working thirty-six or forty-eight hours at a stretch. In some of our
operations, we coordinated the movements of units from the United States and
back. We enjoyed great success though at a great price in men and material. At
the end of the operation, we’d either killed or driven key segments of the AQI
organization from the operational field. We were exhausted. A picture of me
snapped when I was unawares shows a man who was “rode hard and put up wet.”
Howie returned to the states shortly after the end of the
operation. He arrived in the states early in the week and as always attended
the chapel, where he sang in the choir. There, on the first Sunday of his
return, he collapsed while singing. He died in front of his wife, children, and
friends while worshiping. We’d all noticed his haggard look, but we then we all
looked pretty rugged. None of us could imagine the corrosive effects of the
pace on Howie. The demands of the operational pace had consumed him. Though
Howie did not die of wounds due to enemy action, his wife and children remain
deprived of a loving husband and father and their grief and pain remain just as
real as if he died in the violence of an improvised explosive device. I think of
him and how hard he worked and how worn he was. Howie had poured his life out
in Iraq and there was nothing left. So, I remember Howie and other friends like
him who gave all they had and were crushed in the process.
