Sunday Read: The greatest farewell gift ever
How an implement of torment became a treasured memento
Memorial Day thoughts
Every year Memorial Day somehow sneaks up on me. I know it’s coming and don’t think twice about it. I make plans and carry on into the weekend and then I see posts on social media from fellow veterans and family members who have lost service members. Men and women I served with remembering our peers we lost. I remember my men that I lost over the years. A cloud sort of settles in for a couple of days. I’m fortunate to have family that understands and gives me the room to carry through.
I talk to so many of my fellow veterans who face the same test each year. It seems to be the lot of a combat veteran to accept that remembering those we lost is important but isn’t without some burden.
It is a weekend of remembrance but should be one of joy too. I know everyone I served with who we lost would want us to crack a cold one in their honor. It also reminds me of a strange phenomenon I face often where my service is questioned, and honor attacked over my politics.
Since becoming something of a public figure through my political work I am constantly attacked by the far-right extremists, MAGA chuds, and the ‘independent thinker’ crowd. I take it all in stride and frankly, sometimes they are just downright hilarious in their attempts to get me mad.
A regular theme as a Democratic veteran is questioning your service to the country from the MAGA vet bro’s. This week I posted a video criticizing Matt Gaetz for his comment about not negotiating with “their hostage” on the debt ceiling bill. I did it in my little studio in the house in front a host of things I picked up over the years in my military career including one of my most prized possessions a giant 101st Airborne Division patch baseball bat mount.
An angry right wing veteran attacked me saying I should take down the 101st patch and never claim to be a veteran again for having the audacity to call Matt Gaetz names. I told him to go to hell, as one does, but it reminds me of just how special that particular plaque really is.
Our life is suffering
I ended up with one of the most original pieces of art because I told my soldiers I absolutely positively didn’t want any such thing. Being soldiers, all I ended up doing was giving them a mission. It’s what we do.
It started with a softball bat and an old building. At the time I was stationed at Fort Campbell with the 2-101st Aviation an Apache equipped attack helicopter battalion as the Acting Battalion Operations Officer as a young Captain just out of Ranger School. Our unit was actually pretty new to the division after Desert Storm, they had moved it up from Fort Hood to round out the 101st. We got the leftover buildings that were literally falling down around us. The Operations shop was no exception.
One day as we were planning an exercise I walked into the shop where my soldiers were busily working at scheduling training, updating our reports for higher headquarters, ordering ammunition for ranges, and all the many things that a battalion must do. One of my young guys was on the unit softball team and had his bat leaning on his desk for practice later.
My ADHD compelled me to pick it up and walk around “threatening” everyone to work harder ala a movie mafia boss. I’m a terrible actor but it became a regular bit about how beatings would continue until morale improved and all of the usual military cliché’s. I would take the bat and bang it on their desks or use it as a pointer in briefings. Before long it became part of our regular kit for deployment, and I would find it leaning on my desk in the field and even in the back of my OH-58 one day.
We’re all gonna die!
In the winter of 1994, we headed to the back forty at Fort Campbell for a training exercise. By then I was the Assistant Operations Officer under a dry but hilarious S3, Major Bill Gillen. My bat made its way to the Tactical Operations Center as usual and we settled in for a busy week or two of air assaults, deep attack missions, and the usual busy work of operating a modern attack helicopter unit in the field.
About three days in we got the news that a massive winter storm was approaching rapidly. What was supposed to be a light rain instead did the Tennessee thing of turning into an ice storm in an instant. By the time we got word the weather had already deteriorated to the point we couldn’t launch the aircraft to fly the 15 miles back to our airfield. The commander made the decision to leave a skeleton crew in the field to secure the aircraft and the remainder would bug out for main post. I volunteered to stay behind as the task force commander as my then wife was visiting family in New York anyway.
The storm was intense. We hunkered down and it came roaring in. First it was rain then the temperature plummeted, and it all became ice. By midnight you could hear trees starting to fall. First small branches, then limbs and finally whole trees.
As the night progressed, I tried to keep everyone’s spirit’s light. I regularly barged into the TOC with my bat and screamed “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” to wake them up and a chuckle. We were ready for whatever it brought but it was tense. Throughout the night I laid up staring at the roof of my tent as it got closer to my face heavy with ice and trees fell only yards away.
We woke up in the morning to a disaster area. The aircraft, equipment, and all personnel were safe and accounted for, but it was a catastrophe around us. Shockingly a tree fell exactly where my main troop tent had been sitting just hours before and would have easily killed or injured a dozen soldiers.
We got hold of the main body on post and found out that so many trees were down on the roads they couldn’t even get onto the roads to reach us for hours if not a day or two. We were trapped with a few boxes of Meals Ready to Eat and our own devices. Being soldiers…hilarity ensued.
It was only a few hours before we began plotting out what we would do if we ran out of food before we were relieved. One of the Apache pilots was a pretty big guy so my training NCO sketched out a plan on the whiteboard to lure him to the TOC with an MRE on a string, then we would club him with my bat and be fine for several days. It’s a dark kind of humor but that’s the life of a military member.
I wandered around the bivouac with my bat checking on all the soldiers and making sure morale was holding. They all took it in stride. It was almost a badge of honor to be a survivor of the great storm. I would swing my bat and yell our unofficial new motto, “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”
Late that first day our determined Command Sergeant Major arrived with a relief convoy of fresh troops, hot food, and replacements. They had cut through something like 23 trees blocking the roads to get to us. I packed my bat and team into our vehicles and headed home with a great story and memories.
Don’t get me something hideous
Flash forward a few months and I was selected to command a company and leaving the Operations staff. As we prepared the soldiers asked me what I wanted for a going away present. I told them explicitly, “Don’t get me some ugly ass giant 101st Screaming Eagle travesty. Something classy.”
I got a monstrosity of 101st pride with the bat I had stolen from my soldier mounted on it with honor. The chef’s kiss was the plaque. They purposely got my name wrong and inscribed our motto, “We’re all gonna die!”
It’s by far the best going away present I ever got anywhere. Sadly, I would lose my wife and unborn child in a tragic car accident just two months later and depart the unit not long after. That plaque is my memento for a tour both gratifying and tragic.
No, I won’t be taking down my military awards or gifts. I earned them the hard way with over 22-years of military service where I saw friends fall, lost my family, damaged my psyche, scarred my body, and did my duty with pride.
Have a good Memorial Day. Big announcement on Monday night. Here is the video that made them all so mad.
Scouts Out!
Fred
Wonderfully written- thanks for the insight AND your service 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Very well written. Good balance of seriousness and humor. You got it on the nose!! My papa was an Italian immigrant and a Screaming Eagle 🦅 in WWII and told me that being one of them taught him tolerance and pride in their differences. They were one. Fought as one. They survived as a unit. They would never have looked at another as someone they couldn't work with because that person might be what allowed them to survive. He returned to the states and left Grumman Aerospace for the NYPD Detectives Force, he was restless. He made Lieutenant. Many of his Unit would visit us and papa moved us to less segregated areas in Brooklyn. He taught us to never judge but listen and I grew up with different values than many around me and benefited with that perspective throughout my life. All because of a scared immigrant who thought he would be treated less than others because of his accent. I am visiting papa's grave in Calverton today. Honoring those who came before is something lost today. It would help these angry people to remember that they are only one of many who came before and that the circle of life continue with or without them. Better with them.
Thank you again. I will take the 101st patch and his wings with me. It is a long journey from Brooklyn. My best and thanks to you for your essay. I will read it again on the train.