'Red Bull' Featured in 'True War Stories' Anthology

Fifteen captivating tales of humor, horror, and other wartime experiences are presented in the forthcoming 250-page comics anthology "True War Stories." The 250-page hardcover, co-edited by Alex de Campi and Iraq War veteran Khai Krumbhaar, will be published by Z2 Comics in November 2020. However, a 30-day Kickstarter campaign launches today, Tues., Aug. 18, 2020. Through the crowd-funding effort, readers may preview and pre-order the book.

One of the featured "True War Stories" is related to the 2010-2011 deployment of the Iowa National Guard's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division.

Written by former Iowa National Guard citizen-soldier Randy Brown, "In the Valley of Lions" originally appeared as an essay in Volume 2 of "Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors." As "Charlie Sherpa," Brown writes about citizen-soldier culture at the Red Bull Rising blog; about modern war poetry at FOBhaiku.com, and about military writing at The Aiming Circle. He also edited a 2015 collection of U.S. Army public affairs journalism about the Iowa brigade's deployment, "Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011."

"As far as I can tell, the last time the 'Red Bull' unit patch showed up in a comic book was in 'Combat Kelly' No. 21, published in 1954," says Brown. "Unlike that story, however, this 'Red Bull' tale is the non-fiction—the real deal. I hope it adequately portrays some of the strange context and significant sacrifices our citizen-soldier neighbors made for the United States, for the people of Panjshir Province, and for the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA).'"

Art on the 13-page comics story "In the Valley of Lions" is by Ryan Howe. Colors are by Kelly Fitzpatrick.

Brown's original essay contrasts a 2-day U.S. Department of State-sponsored "tourism conference" held in Pansjhir Province in June 2011, with a July 2011 insider attack that resulted in the deaths of Sgt. 1st Class Terryl Pasker, 39, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and civilian law enforcement advisor Paul Protzenko, 46, of Enfield, Mass. Also injured in the attack was Master Sgt. Todd Eipperle, 46, of Marshalltown, Iowa. Eipperle was recognized for his response to the attack.

Later in 2011, the Red Bull Rising blog posted additional information about the attack here.

Published annually published by Southeast Missouri State University Press, Cape Girardeau, Mo., the "Proud to Be" series is an anthology of military non-fiction, fiction, poetry, photography, and more. For a Red Bull Rising review of the 2013 volume in which "In the Valley of Lions" first appeared, click here.

For more information about "True War Stories," and to pre-order one or more copies—including editions autographed by the co-editors—visit the Kickstarter campaign here.

Update: Soldier Sets New Sights on Seven Years' War

Jason Huffman with "1750: Britain vs. France" at GenCon 2014. PHOTO: Battle Hardened Games, Inc.

Editor's note: This post is an update to a Red Bull Rising post that ran Aug. 28, 2014. While the effort to meet that earlier, $28,000 goal proved unsuccessful, the game designers have recently launched a smarter, leaner attempt at funding the project. With more than 25 days to go, they seem well on their way to making their $12,000 objective.

Like many soldiers, Iowa Army National Guard member Jason Huffman loves history, loves games and simulations, and loves learning about history through gaming. After months of game design, play-testing, and even demonstrating at the 2014 GenCon gaming convention in Indianapolis, he and his colleagues at Battle Hardened Games have launched a crowd-funding effort to bring their inaugural game "1750: Britain vs. France" to full production.

Sample graphics from the game "1750: Britain vs. France"

The game "1750" is a 2-player card-based strategy contest, using both dice and cards to fight for control of the board. One player plays as Britain and the other as France, and each seeks to dominate the globe. Players leverage historical events, land and sea forces, generals and admirals, supplies, and allies to control the North American, African, and Indian colonies in the years leading up the American Revolution. The graphics incorporate the paintings, maps, and other artwork of the day.

A Kickstarter page for the project is here. A video is here, as well as below. A Facebook page for Battle Hardened Games is here. Huffman started his game company in 2013, and is trying to raise $12,000 by Wed., Nov. 9, 2016.

"My top priority is to deliver games that you'll enjoy playing, whether you are a history fan or not," he writes on his website. "But I do hope that you will learn a little bit about history when playing our games. I also hope that some educators will consider using our games as a framework for discussing history, particularly the leaders, battles, economics, and geography involved."

In 2007-2008, Huffman spent a year deployed to Western Afghanistan as part of an Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.). There, he saw the echoes of empires first-hand. (Also, be sure to ask him about the Taliban chicken.) In his first game design, however, he chose to focus on the 18th century struggle between imperial powers Britain and France—the "Seven Year's War." (In the theater that was to become the United States, the conflict is better known as the "French and Indian War.")

For Huffman, the historical milieu provides an opportunity to explore lessons on scales ranging from the global, to the individual. He writes:

Many British officers that would later play major roles in the American Revolution also fought in the Seven Year's War, with some of the younger officers in the American Revolution going on to fight in other British conflicts of the late 1700s.

There are a few British generals that I find particularly interesting in terms of their legacies from this era. They fought in multiple wars and had very different results in each of them. Growing up in an American school system, our history books didn't really address parts of their careers that didn't deal with American history. Basically they get mentioned within the context of the American Revolution and that’s it.

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, circa 1796

Take, for example, Charles Cornwalis. Huffman writes on his website:

Basically, looking at American history books, or watching [2000 film] The Patriot, Cornwallis would have been viewed as the biggest loser of the 1700s. He surrendered an army of over 7,000 soldiers, the act that ultimately broke military British efforts to retain the 13 colonies. This same person was hugely instrumental in the ongoing rise of British power in the Indian subcontinent. You can't look back at him and only weigh the Yorktown surrender in judging his performance as a commander [...]

The entrepreneurial Huffman is an Iowa National Guard signal officer, and also spent time as a civilian contractor instructing on mission command systems. He now works for a national healthcare insurer.

Huffman is a 2003 graduate of the Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Iowa, Iowa City.

"My love of military history was certainly a strong influence in my decision to join the military," he tells the Red Bull Rising blog. "My grandfather was also a medic in the 34th Infantry Division during WWII in North Africa and Italy, and that was always inspiring to me when I decided to join."

And ... what about the war story regarding Pashtun poultry? "I was driving wearing N.V.G.s [Night Vision Goggles] during an operation to cordon an Afghan village, when a chicken flew at our Humvee, knocking out a tactical satellite that had been zip-tied to the hood and really hurting our communications during that operation."

"That chicken," Huffman says, "was Taliban."

Iowa Soldier Crowd-funds to Refight 'Seven Years' War'

Jason Huffman with "1750: Britain vs. France" at GenCon 2014. PHOTO: Battle Hardened Games, Inc.

Like many soldiers, Iowa Army National Guard member Jason Huffman loves history, loves games and simulations, and loves learning about history through gaming. After months of game design, play-testing, and even demonstrating at the recent GenCon gaming convention in Indianapolis, he and his colleagues at Battle Hardened Games have launched a crowd-funding effort to bring their inaugural game "1750: Britain vs. France" to full production.

Sample graphics from the game "1750: Britain vs. France"

The game "1750" is a 2-player card-based strategy contest, using both dice and cards to fight for control of the board. One player plays as Britain and the other as France, and each seeks to dominate the globe. Players leverage historical events, land and sea forces, generals and admirals, supplies, and allies to control the North American, African, and Indian colonies in the years leading up the American Revolution. The graphics incorporate the paintings, maps, and other artwork of the day.

A Kickstarter page for the project is here. A video is here, as well as below. A Facebook page for Battle Hardened Games is here. Huffman started his game company in 2013, and is trying to raise $28,000 by Sun., Sept. 28, 2014. He has already fronted the graphic design and other developmental costs. If funded via Kickstarter, the game is ready to go into full production.

"My top priority is to deliver games that you'll enjoy playing, whether you are a history fan or not," he writes on his website. "But I do hope that you will learn a little bit about history when playing our games. I also hope that some educators will consider using our games as a framework for discussing history, particularly the leaders, battles, economics, and geography involved."

In 2007-2008, Huffman spent a year deployed to Western Afghanistan as part of an Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.). There, he saw the echoes of empires first-hand. (Also, be sure to ask him about the Taliban chicken.) In his first game design, however, he chose to focus on the 18th century struggle between imperial powers Britain and France—the "Seven Year's War." (In the theater that was to become the United States, the conflict is better known as the "French and Indian War.")

For Huffman, the historical mileu provides an opportunity to explore lessons on scales ranging from the global, to the individual. He writes:

Many British officers that would later play major roles in the American Revolution also fought in the Seven Year's War, with some of the younger officers in the American Revolution going on to fight in other British conflicts of the late 1700s.

There are a few British generals that I find particularly interesting in terms of their legacies from this era. They fought in multiple wars and had very different results in each of them. Growing up in an American school system, our history books didn't really address parts of their careers that didn't deal with American history. Basically they get mentioned within the context of the American Revolution and that’s it.

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, circa 1796

Take, for example, Charles Cornwalis. Huffman writes on his website:

Basically, looking at American history books, or watching [2000 film] The Patriot, Cornwallis would have been viewed as the biggest loser of the 1700s. He surrendered an army of over 7,000 soldiers, the act that ultimately broke military British efforts to retain the 13 colonies. This same person was hugely instrumental in the ongoing rise of British power in the Indian subcontinent. You can't look back at him and only weigh the Yorktown surrender in judging his performance as a commander [...]

In his "spare time," the entrepreneurial Huffman is an Iowa National Guard signal officer assigned to 734th Regional Support Group (R.S.G.), and recently spent time as a civilian contractor instructing on mission command systems. Huffman is a 2003 graduate of the Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. "My love of military history was certainly a strong influence in my decision to join the military," he tells the Red Bull Rising blog. "My grandfather was also a medic in the 34th Infantry Division during WWII in North Africa and Italy, and that was always inspiring to me when I decided to join."

And ... what about the war story regarding Pashtun poultry?

"I was driving wearing N.V.G.s [Night Vision Goggles] during an operation to cordon an Afghan village, when a chicken flew at our Humvee, knocking out a tactical satellite that had been zip-tied to the hood and really hurting our communications during that operation."

"That chicken," Huffman says, "was Taliban."

Director Promises Film on U.S. Embedded Trainers

The director of a documentary that tells the story of a U.S. Army National Guard Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.) in Southern Afghanistan 2006-2007, as well as a parallel story regarding Canadian security forces operating in the same area, Scott Kesterson says he is throwing out previous versions of the film and going back to scratch.

Kesterson recently updated listeners to the "Top Talk" podcast regarding the project, now in post-production under the working title "Bards of War." For an mp3 of the 53-minute podcast, click here.

In that interview, Kesterson says he now plans to separate the two story lines into two smaller, 40- to 60-minute documentaries. The first, regarding the "Red Devils" of 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (P.P.C.L.I.), would be released in early December 2013 via digital download or rental services such as iTunes or Netflix. The other, regarding an Oregon Army National Guard team of embedded trainers, would follow approximately one year later.

"These films are kind of putting [Afghanistan] to bed in very critical sense," Kesterson says. "What we're talking about is two versions of the war. That's why the two stories go together. One is a very kinetic version of the war, and the other is this embedded training, indigenous-type, mentor-advisor combat advisor role, which is a completely different lens on the war. You put those two side-by-side, and you start to, arguably, get a glimpse into what we didn't do right and could do better, and, arguably, is a direction in the future."

Originally shot as "At War" and slated for release in 2008 or 2009, music-rights acquisition and other other production challenges put the film project on the shelf for a few years. (A handful trailers and excerpts from that film is available on YouTube here.) After shooting the film as embedded media, Kesterson subsequently worked in Afghanistan as an information operations consultant. He also occasionally wrote at the Huffington Post.

"['At War'] was an attractive and alluring product, but a lot of that was because of the music," Kesterson says, "When you strip away the music, you don't have much of a film." In the new film, he says, contemporary follow-up interviews with veterans will help place the experiences of boots and bullets on the ground into a larger context.

"There's a very rich amount of material there, of telling just that story," Kesterson says. "That's a story of National Guard citizen-soldiers doing something that historically has never happened before: That's training, equipping, and fielding through combat, a nation's military, a national police force, and a nation's border police force."

War Stories and Coffee Talk

I wore my Afghan media mufti earlier this week. The madness of deploying and not deploying to Afghanistan now over, I'm volunteering again as a board member in our homeowners association. Our suburban neighborhood was developed by Pioneer Hi-bred, a company with a proud Iowa history and connection to the land. Developers interspersed lots of green spaces among the houses and cul-de-sacs, and even designated a prairie restoration area.

One graduate school degree later, I now understand that the term "restoration" presumes that there was prairie there to begin with, and I'm not intellectually prepared to argue that we're turning back the clock in any way.

We city-folk in Iowa tend to think two things about our land:

1. Before European settlement, it used to be prairie. There may have been buffalo. And tall grasses.
2. Today, it's industrialized, planted out in corn, hogs, and soybeans. There is very little "nature" left in our patch of the Middle West.

Still, the prairie is a unique feature to our neighborhood, and gives us a sense of place and character that wouldn't otherwise be found in our otherwise cookie-cutter production homes. A few board members, volunteers, and contractors were going to walk the terrain this week. We'd recently hired a crew to conduct a prairie burn, and wanted to assess the results. We also wanted to plan our summer attack on weeds and invasives.

So I wore the same kit that I wore in Afghanistan. I've taken to calling it "mufti," after the British military custom of altering the uniform for off-duty wear. (Think "fez and slippers," because I know I do.)

Red Bull Rising blog readers may remember how I agonized about what not to wear during my 2011 embed with the Iowa National Guard's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT). As a citizen-soldier, Uncle Sam tells you exactly what to pack. When you're a civilian writer, however, Uncle Sam gets a little passive-aggressive: Don't wear camouflage patterns or military equipment. No weapons. Bring your own flak vest.

The Arabic word "mufti" originally meant "an Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law." I enjoy the multiple layers of meaning. Makes me feel like bit of an infidel.

For the prairie walk, I wore my tan ACU-style trousers (cargo pockets!), my civilian Gore-Tex hiking boots, and a wicking T-shirt under a powder-blue long-sleeved travel shirt. The kind that you can hand-wash in a sink full of non-potable water, and afterward dry in about 60 minutes of Afghan sun. And my Iowa Cyclones ball cap, subdued brown instead of the usual cardinal-and-gold.

To paraphrase a favorite line from "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), however: "Before the prairie must come the coffee."

When I walk into the local Starbucks for a cup of the dark stuff, I'm greeted by the same National Guard officer who hired me on temporary duty back in summer 2010, after my wife and I learned three weeks before mobilization that I'd not be deploying with the rest of the 2-34th BCT. I'd worked with him previously, when he had been the brigade's executive officer. In 2010, he had been the state mobilization officer, and asked me to join an Iowa "white cell" team. Our mission was to help get the Red Bull to Camp Shelby, Miss., then to Fort Irwin, Calif. After that, we joked, the brigade would be "beyond our help."

In effect, this was the gentleman who started "Operation Bad Penny"—my continual visitation of Red Bull units through post-mobilization training and simulated combat.

A couple of weeks after hiring me for stateside duty, my new boss was himself called to deploy with the 2-34th BCT. He eventually commanded an Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.) in Panjshir Province, then part of the 2-34th BCT's "Area of Operation Red Bulls."

When he spots me in Starbucks this week, I'm pretty much wearing the same thing I wore when I got of the helicopter in Panjshir, minus the body armor. After we shake hands, he turns to his coffee shop colleague, and proceeds to tell the story of how his team had gotten the word that some civilian V.I.P. named Sherpa was in-bound. He hadn't made the "Bad Penny" connection that it was me, however, until I'd arrived in person at FOB Lion. It's a story I've heard him tell before, of course. I've even told it a few times myself.

It's like I say: "Big Army, small world."

The Constant State-by-State of War

When I started the Red Bull Rising blog in late 2009, I was preparing to deploy as a member of the Iowa Army National Guard. My buddies and I kept a digital ear out for news of Vermont's 86th Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), the unit we planned to replace. We sifted and scanned Vermont newspaper and television reports, U.S. Army public affairs releases from Afghanistan, and posts from mil-bloggers and Facebookers.

The 1,500-member 86th BCT had originally deployed as the command-and-control headquarters for Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix, a U.S. and coalition training mission that had been in place since 2003. (A quick review: In Army speak, the term "combined" means "U.S. plus allies." The term "joint" means one or more branches of the armed forces: Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard. A "task force" is an group of disparate units organized around a specific mission.)

The CJTF Phoenix mission was to advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces (A.N.S.F.), including various forms of Afghan police and military units. It controlled 8- or 16-person Embedded Training Teams (E.T.T.). Coalition partners call their ETT personnel "Operational Mentor Liaison Teams" (OMLT, pronounced "omelette").

An additional irony? Such Foreign Internal Defense ("FID") training missions have traditionally been considered a core mission of U.S. Special Forces. The National Guard, on the other hand, often has to battle "second-string" stereotypes when encountering active-duty soldiers in the field. Even after more than 10 years of deployments, and transformation into an operational reserve.

That U.S. National Guard soldiers tend to have civilian-acquired work experiences and skills is often touted as an advantage in the advise-and-assist context. Citizen-soldiers who are law enforcement professionals back home can be used to mentor Afghan National Police, for example. Teachers and coaches, business owners and managers can be more familiar with non-military mentorship models. With the possible exception of the National Guard’s joint Agribusiness Development Teams (A.D.T.), however, in which citizen-soldiers and -airmen are deployed based upon their civilian-acquired agricultural skills, it’s hard to move such assumptions and assertions beyond the anecdotal.

In 2009, in the middle of a foreign country, a deployment, and a war, Vermont's 86th BCT reconfigured to a mission in which they would act as "battlespace owners" for the provinces of Parwan, Panjshir, and Bamiyan Provinces. Two more U.S. National Guard brigades—each approximately 3,000 personnel each—would follow. Rather than being sliced up into smaller companies and battalions, and assigned to support active-duty brigades, the National Guard brigades were kept relatively whole.

Iowa's 2nd BCT, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) deployed to Afghanistan from October 2010 to July 2011. It took over the mission in Parwan (where Bagram Airfield is located), Panjshir, and Laghman Provinces. One Red Bull battalion, the 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry Regiment (1-168th Inf.) was attached to active-duty brigade in Paktiya Province. A 400-member Nebraska Army National Guard unit with historical ties to the Red Bull, the 1st Squadron, 134th Cavalry (1-134th Cav.), deployed alongside the 2-34th BCT. Based at Camp Phoenix in Kabul, the 1-134th Cav. deployed as mentors and trainers for Afghan National Police.

Oklahoma's 45th BCT ("Thunderbird") took over the Red Bull's mission in July 2012, maintaining responsibility for Laghman Province and other areas. After the Thunderbird took over, my Red Bull buddies and I again took to the Internet, this time watching for Oklahoma newspaper and television reports, U.S. Army public affairs releases, and posts from mil-bloggers and Facebookers. As of this week, nearly all of the Thunderbird units have returned home to Oklahoma. Rather than hand-off to another U.S. National Guard unit, in February the Thunderbird transferred authority to an active-duty unit.

Watching a war through the lens of brigade-sized deployments, state by state, is an accessible way to perceive the ebb and flow of the past 10 years. In the beginning, it was team after 16-person mentor team. Occasionally, a state would get tapped for the CJTF Phoenix mission—a brigade's worth of headquarters staff, plus yet more advise-and-assist teams. Then, for a grand and glorious moment, the states were asked to muster fully trained, fully resourced fighting brigades. Newspaper reporters wrote sentences like, "the largest deployment of Iowa troops since World War II."

Now, with American resolve, purpose, and troop numbers waning in Afghanistan, U.S. political and military leaders have taken to describing a "new" mission of advising and assisting Afghan forces, and withdrawing troops by 2014. Given that the advise-and-assist mission started in 2003 and never stopped, this latest language seems like rhetorical repackaging. Meet the new mission, same as the old mission.

During mobilization in 2011, Ohio's 37th BCT ("Buckeye")—was re-configured to fulfill an advise-and-assist mission in Northern Afghanistan. It arrived Afghanistan in February 2012.

The Red Bull Rising crystal ball is currently in for servicing and recalibration, but it seems as if the moment of brigade-sized deployments might be over. Perhaps National Guard units will be more likely to deploy piecemeal as companies and battalions, or as 16-person mentor-and-trainer teams. Even the National Guard-specific Agribusiness Development Teams (A.D.T.) may be winding down. In a recent ceremony in Paktya Province, for example, the outgoing Nebraska ADT transferred its responsibilities to the co-located Provincial Reconstruction Team (P.R.T.).

During the Association of the United States Army (A.U.S.A.) annual convention and trial-balloon festival last fall, there was much talk of assigning the advise-and-assist mission to the Reserve Component. (Other, contradictory balloons: Assign to the U.S. Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve most or all of the heavy/armored and field artillery forces.) Proposals to create and train specific advise-and-assist capability, whether in the active- or reserve-components, seem to have stalled. The consensus seems to be that the military will continue to take such teams ad hoc and out of hide, rather than create specific organizations or structure. Every soldier wants to grow up to be Patton or Schwarzkopf; few aspire to be Lawrence of Arabia.

That's not to say that operational deployments are over, or that war isn't still a dangerous business. While 70 headquarters soldiers of the Indiana National Guard's 76th BCT ("Night Hawks") were engaged in send-off ceremonies to Afghanistan last January, the Hoosier state simultaneously learned of the loss of four Indiana combat engineers assigned to the 713th Engineer Company, Valaparaiso, Ind.

Sobering times.

War beats on.

*****

For additional insights into the history of the advise-and-assist mission, see Jeffrey Courter's "Afghan Journal" and Benjamin Tupper's "Greetings from Afghanistan" and "Dudes of War." Also, check out former U.S. Marine officer Jonathan Rue's "Build a House and Burn it Down," in which he reflects on his experiences training Iraqi soldiers. And Joseph Trevithick's insightful attempt on Tom Ricks' "Best Defense" blog to untangle the historically convoluted U.S./coalition command structures in Afghanistan.

Iowa Red Bull Soldier Awarded Bronze Star

NaMaster Sgt. Todd Eipperle, 46, received a hero's welcome with a Marshalltown, Iowa, parade and ceremony Sat., Sept. 17. A member of a 16-member Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.) in Panjshir Province, Afghanistan, Eipperle was wounded when he responded to a July 2011 attack by a rogue Afghan security officer that killed fellow Iowa Army National Guard soldier Sgt. 1st Class Teryl L. Pasker, 39, and retired Connecticut State Trooper Paul Protzenko, 47. Eipperle shot and killed the assassin, and himself suffered gunshot injuries.

The incident took place in a province considered so secure that U.S. personnel do not typically wear body armor, and drive armored Sport Utility Vehicles (S.U.V.) rather than heavier Army trucks. The shooting also occurred just days or weeks before Eipperle and Pasker were slated to return home with the rest of Iowa's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division.

See previous Red Bull Rising blog posts about the incident here and here.

Saturday's event included a proclamation from the acting mayor of Marshalltown, declaring "Master Sgt. Todd Eipperle Day," as well as a parade and ceremony attended by hundreds. Boy and Cub Scouts featured prominently throughout--in his civilian career, Eipperle is District Director for the Boy Scouts of America's Mid-Iowa Council. Before the Marshalltown crowd, Eipperle was presented a Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service during his Afghan tour. Previously, he had been presented the Purple Heart during a hospital stay in Germany. He continues to be on active-duty orders at Fort Riley, Kansas pending medical release, His family anticipates he will be home full-time by mid-October.

Media coverage of the Saturday event included:

• "Iowa Guardsman to receive Bronze Star for heroism today," Des Moines (Iowa) Register, Sept. 17, 2011

• "A hero returns: Eipperle awarded Bronze Star at hometown ceremony," Marshalltown (Iowa) Times-Republican, Sept. 18, 2011

• "Celebration for Hometown Hero," WOI-TV5, Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 17, 2011 (article and video)

• "Hero's Welcome: Marshalltown pays tribute to an Iowa soldier wounded in battle," WHO-TV13, Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 17, 2011 (article and video)

• "Marshalltown soldier welcomed home," KCCI-TV8, Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 17, 2011 (video)

Iowa Red Bull Soldier Killed in Panjshir

Just days or weeks away from his return from a yearlong deployment, Iowa Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Terryl L. Pasker, 39, of Cedar Rapids was killed approximately 9:30 a.m. Afghan time, Sat., July 9 when an Afghan National Directorate of Security (N.D.S.) trooper opened fire on Pasker's vehicle while it was stopped at a traffic control point. The incident took place in Darah District of Panjshir Province near a construction project site. An unidentified U.S. civilian law enforcement professional ("LEP") in Pasker's vehicle was also killed.

Iowa National Guard officials announced Pasker's death at a July 10 press conference at Camp Dodge, Iowa.

Master Sgt. Todd Eipperle of Marshalltown, Iowa, was also injured during the attack. As the driver of a vehicle that preceded Pasker's through the traffic control point, Eipperle reportedly stopped his vehicle when shots were fired, exited his vehicle to return fire and killed Pasker's assailant. The attack is under investigation.

The New York Times reported on the incident here.

Eipperle is receiving treatment at an Army medical facility in Afghanistan. He is a member of Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division, which is headquartered in Boone.

Pasker is a member of Bravo Company, 334th Brigade Support Battalion, headquartered in Cedar Rapids. Assigned as an electronic maintenance supervisor, he was serving in Panjshir as part a small Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.) that advises, mentors, and assists Afghan police. An Iowa National Guard spokesman said Sunday that Pasker owned a contracting business in Eastern Iowa, and brought a hardworking "construction mentality" to his work in Panjshir. Part of his military duties involved monitoring contractor performance on coalition-funded projects.

Pansjhir is traditionally celebrated as one of the safest provinces in Afghanistan, a place in which U.S. military personnel do not typically wear helmets and body armor. (Locals take great pride in the security of their region--neither the Soviets nor the Taliban were able to effectively penetrate the province--and are said to take offense at any suggestion that guests in their valley are not safe.) Also, U.S. personnel in Panjshir routinely travel in unarmed-but-armored pickup trucks or SUVs, rather than Mine-Resistant Ambushed-Protected (M-RAP, pronounced "em-rap") vehicles more familiar to other parts of the country.

Earlier this year, U.S. state department officials in Panjshir anticipated that the province would be wholly "transitioned" to Afghan responsibility as early as Fall 2011.

Pasker had previously deployed to Afghanistan in 2004-2005. He is survived by a wife, his mother and father, one brother, and two sisters. He and his wife reportedly planned to start a family following his pending 2012 retirement from the Iowa Army National Guard. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Eipperle, the senior enlisted officer for Task Force Red Bulls' training team in Panjshir, is in his civilian career the District Director of the Mid-Iowa Council of the Boy Scouts of America. In January, he connected via videoconference Cub Scout Pack 182 in Iowa with an Afghan National Police (A.N.P.) officer in Panjshir. The policeman shared some insights about Afghan life, and taught the scouts some words in the Dari language.

"When I thanked Captain [Sefat] Mire for doing this for our boys, he simply replied, 'It's something I will remember forever,'" Eipperle said at the time.

The Golden Cross Roads

If you stare at something long enough, sometimes you start to see patterns. Driving for hours on the Midwestern flatlands, cornfields blurring past, mind wandering but present, the trick is to recognize when you're making real connections, and when you're just making crop circles.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to travel to downstate Illinois. In a series of coincidences, similar to those I encountered in Mississippi last year, I repeatedly came across the number "33" and the symbol of a Golden Cross--in museums, in roadside signs, and even on bumper stickers.

The 33rd Infantry Division was created in the same pre-World War I years as the 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division. Where the Red Bull was originally comprised of soldiers from Iowa, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota, however, the 33rd Infantry Division was made up of soldiers from Illinois. The division patch is a golden cross, superimposed on a circular field of black. The symbol's origin stems from an Illinois regiment's pre-WWI practice of marking property with a yellow cross as protection from thievery, based on the belief that the color and shape was anathema to Muslims.

The 33rd Infantry Division fought in Europe in World War I, and in the Pacific in World War II.

Today, the division's heritage is perpetuated by the Illinois Army National Guard's 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (I.B.C.T.). The unit deployed to Afghanistan as Combined Joint Task Force (C.J.T.F.) Phoenix in 2008-2009. Centered on a U.S. National Guard brigade headquarters, CJTF Phoenix was responsible for coordinating an international, multiservice effort to train and mentor Afghan army and police personnel. (Returning to "Red Bull" history for a moment: At one point, as they prepared for deployment to Afghanistan in 2010, the soldiers of Iowa's 2nd BCT, 34th Infantry Division thought they themselves might be tasked with the CJTF Phoenix mission.)

In other words, the 33rd IBCT and the U.S. National Guard was technically responsible for the primary vector toward U.S. military success in Afghanistan: The training of a professional and capable indigenous national security force.

During my recent Illinois travels, a museum exhibit mentioned the American Civil War-era 33rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The states-and-numbers system used in the naming of military units was chewed up and spat out during that war, but somehow the state of Illinois held on to the number 33 during the early 20th century reorganization of the U.S. National Guard.

I have yet to connect the official unit genealogy--the "unit lineage"--between the Civil War-era 33rd Illinois Volunteer Regiment and the modern-day 33rd IBCT. The numerical similarity, however, caused me to ponder a sequence of U.S. National Guard divisions created in the years prior to World War I. Was there a reason that the Illinois unit was designated "33"? Was there a reason that the "Red Bull" was numbered "34"? Were there other connections to be made?

• The 32nd Infantry "Red Arrow" Division came from Wisconsin.

• The 33rd Infantry "Prairie" Division came from Illinois.

• The 34th Infantry "Sandstorm" (later, in World War II, designated the "Red Bull") Division came from Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas.

• The 35th Infantry "Santa Fe" Division came from Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.

• The 36th Infantry "Arrowhead" Division came from Texas.

• The 37th Infantry "Buckeye" Division came from Ohio.

• The 38th Infantry "Cyclone" Division came from Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

Obviously, the 36th Infantry's "Arrowhead" is the outlier, the only non-Midwestern state in the sequence. In terms of geographic adjacencies, the shapes of unit patches, the nicknames of the units, the possible patterns seem neither random nor entirely rational.

For example: The unit patches of the 33rd, the 35th, and the 37th divisions, for example, are all circular. Those of the 32nd, 36th, and 38th are varying types of triangles. The 34th, 35th, and 38th were all originally named regarding significant weather or terrain of their respective World War I training sites.

It's all fun to think about, but I'm not sure it gets me anywhere.

Look at something long enough, and you start to see things. Sometimes, there are patterns to be found, even out on the prairie. Other times, you seem to travel in circles.

Finding where you started, however, doesn't necessarily mean you've ended up in the same place.

5 Books to Read About Afghanistan

Don't call this a Gift Guide, or even a "Best Books of Pre-Deployment" review. Reading these titles won't make you an expert on Afghanistan, or What We're Trying to Do There. That said, as a citizen-soldier, I've found each of these helpful in piecing together What We're Doing in Afghanistan.

Best of all, each of these is accessible to non-military audience. In other words, you don't have to be a military historian fluent in Army acronyms to get a lot of bang from these books:

"War" by Sebastian Junger

This book covers much of the same ground as the 2010 documentary "Restrepo," which author Sebastian Junger ("The Perfect Storm") co-produced with Tim Hetherington after continually embedding with a U.S. infantry company in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley in 2007-08. I saw Restrepo first, and even been lucky enough to have seen it a couple of times. The book enriched my understanding not only of how the soldiers of Battle Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team fought the fight, but how they came to the fight in the first place--and where it left them afterward.

• First impression on reading the book: "Wow! That was ... Wow!"
• Second impression: "I can't wait to read that again!"
• Third impression: "I can't wait to see 'Restrepo' again!"

I've decided to start describing Junger's book as one facet of a larger multimedia work, one that needs to be visited and re-visited, turned over and reflected upon. Yes, each of the components--"Restrepo," Junger's "War," and Hetherington's "Infidel" (reviewed below)--is independently worthy of much praise and consideration. They add up to something even greater, however.

For his part, Junger makes writing about war look almost too easy. One can spend hours unpacking his simple prose, as if the sentences were written by Confucian fortune-cookie makers. Here are some personal favorites or mine:

Every time you drove down the road you were engaged in a twisted existential exercise where each moment was the only proof you'd ever have that you hadn't been blown upon the moment before. [p. 142]

Rear-base limbo: an ill blend of apprehension and boredom that is only relieved by going forward where things are even worse. [p. 199]

When I asked the men about their allegiance to one another, they said they would unhesitatingly risk their lives for anyone in the platoon or company, but that the sentiment dropped off pretty quickly after that. By the time you got to the brigade level--three or four thousand men--any sense of common goals or identity was pretty much theoretical. [p. 242]

*****

"Infidel" by Tim Hetherington

Packaged to resemble the type of black Moleskine sketchbook favored by some artists and writers, this collection is a jumble of Hetherington's photographs, words from soldiers and Sebastian Junger, and other mental ephemera.

Hetherington's photographic view extends to a more-artistic, less-journalistic treatment of some of his subjects. Sometimes, rather than a straight-forward newshound's pictorial account of soldierly toil, Hetherington gives the grime and squalor a near-transcendent treatment--combat as still-life. Trust me: After reflecting on these images, you will never look at fly-strips, Army cots, and cheesecake centerfolds the same way.

The book takes its title from one of the tattoos shared by the Battle Company soldiers. (One of the soldiers packed a tattoo gun up to the remote outpost.) Hetherington documents the body art in both photographs and drawings. Each soldier has his own designs, his own scars, and his own brand--variations on a theme.

If "Restrepo" allows us to witness the conditions that Battle Company endured, and "War" illuminates how fighting men are bound together, then "Infidel" allows us to see each of these men again as individuals: flawed, young, and innocent.

As Junger writes in Infidel:

Creeping through the outpost came Tim, camera in hand, grabbing photographs of the soldiers as they slept "You never see them like this," he said to me later. "They always look so tough, but when they're asleep they look like little boys. They look the way their mothers probably remember them." [p. 15]

Having seen the war through Hetherington's eyes, you will not look at your sleeping sons and daughters the same way, either.

*****

"Where Men With Glory" by Jon Krakauer

I'm not sure I would've liked Pat Tillman. That's probably saying more about me than it is him, but more on that in a second. In the mid-1990s, Tillman played college football for Arizona State University, and eventually ended up playing professionally for the Arizona Cardinals. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, however, he and his brother enlisted in the Army--he gave up millions of dollars to serve his country--and later deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

I tend to be biased against jocks and meatheads, and pictures of Tillman as the square-jawed Army Ranger or the long-haired gridiron gladiator tend to play into my worst high-school instincts.

The problem is, Tillman doesn't fit anybody's stereotype. And he was anything but a meathead.

As he was an everyday free-thinker, iconoclast, and patriot, I probably would've ended up liking Tillman, if I had been given a chance. Unfortunately, too many of us were never given the chance. He was killed in Khost Province, Afghanistan in a friendly fire incident April 22, 2004.

In the United States, political and Army leaders at the highest levels sought to celebrate Tillman as a martyr in the "Global War on Terror," a position at odds not only with the circumstances of his death, but with his increasingly articulated views against the invasion of Iraq.

The events leading up to Tillman's death were largely driven by bad calls made by unthinking leaders who were back in a Tactical Operations Center ("TOC"), rather than out on the ground. Army leaders failed to investigate and accurately report those events. Tillman's death was used for cheap political gain.

Ask any soldier: Accidents can happen--even fatal ones--but cover-ups are made. Cover-ups are more insidious than friendly fire. Cover-ups chip away at trust and honor within an organization. If we don't have trust and honor, what are soldiers left with? And what good is an Army?

*****

"Afghan Journal" by Jeff Courter

I reviewed this book in June, and had the pleasure of working with the author when he guest-blogged for Red Bull Rising in November.

Illinois Army National Guard Sgt. First Class Jeff Courter weathered a 2007 deployment to Afghanistan with plain-spoken good humor, quiet faith, and a passion for trying to put it all together. A former Marine cook and Navy Reservist, he deployed to Afghanistan as as an Army ETT tasked with training Afghan Border Police (A.B.P.). While there, he blogged about his experiences, and later self-published this book. His blog-posts are presented here chronologically, which creates a conversational, easy-to-read pace.

When a National Guard mother or father asks me about what the Afghan mission is like and for, I often start by putting Courter's book in their hands.

*****

"Greetings from Afghanistan: Send More Ammo" by Benjamin Tupper

Reviewing this book was one of the first good things I did shortly after launching the Red Bull Rising blog in December 2009.

New York Army National Guard Capt. Benjamin Tupper had worked in Afghanistan as a civilian in 2004 before deploying as an Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.) member in 2006. An ETT is a small group of U.S. soldiers who train and mentor Afghan police and army counterparts. As such, they're really the less-celebrated core of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. You can kick down as many doors and kill as many bad guys as you want, but until the Afghan government can keep its own people safe and secure, it's all just tactical cats-and-mice.

As Tupper writes:

Sending an additional 30,000 soldiers may seem like a rational approach to fighting and defeating the growing Taliban insurgency, but it misses a simple truth. As the Afghans like to say: "You Americans have all the watches, but we Afghans have all the time."

Afghan Trainer: Values More Important than Tactics

Editor’s note: In 2007, Army Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Courter and 15 other Illinois National Guard soldiers deployed to an Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.) mission in the Wor Mamay district, Paktika Province, Afghanistan. Along with three other ETT members, he helped mentor a company of 35 Afghan Border Police (A.B.P.).

Since his deployment, Courter, now an Illinois National Guard recruiter and part-time seminary student, Courter has continued to wrestle with questions and insights he gathered in Afghanistan.

In 2008, he self-published his “Afghan Journal” notes as a book (available as paperback and in Amazon Kindle format), and continues to blog at: www.lifeloveandtruth.com.

Red Bull Rising invited Courter to share his thoughts with the recently deployed soldiers of 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry “Red Bull” Division. Some Red Bull soldiers will directly mentor Afghan police and army units. Others will fight alongside and support them.

*****

By Jeff Courter
To be effective at “how” we fight, we should begin with “why.” Some warriors emphasize tactics, and ignore the reasons we’re on the battlefield in the first place--as if they’re independent variables. They’re not. The right values can be the greatest tactical advantage of all, especially in Afghanistan. That’s because soldiers--whether U.S. or Afghan--will fight harder and longer when motivated for the right reasons.

Young soldiers may roll their eyes when old warhorse NCOs trot out the seven Army Values--“Loyalty. Duty. Respect. Selfless Service. Honor. Integrity. Personal Courage.” But face it: Values work. They work for individuals, as well as entire armies.

Sharing these principles with our Afghan colleagues is mission-critical.

Granted, progress may not be swift. It may even span generations. Whether you frame this conflict as multiple small wars--or a single very long one--the road to constructive, sustainable change won’t be straight, and can’t be hurried. Our enemies are patient, committed and ruthless. We must be patient, committed, and valorous.

Not all of your new Afghan colleagues may share your values or professionalism, but that shouldn’t deter you. Let your actions do the talking, no matter your assignment or situation. To paraphrase General Petraeus:

“Regular training teams can’t be everywhere, so units must help enforce local military standards, enable performance, and monitor for abuses and inefficiencies. Any coalition unit working with local security forces will be studied, emulated and copied--for better or worse. Therefore, we must always set the example. Any coalition unit operating alongside local security forces is performing a mentoring, training, and example-setting role.”

Think of Afghanistan as the Wild West. Think of the Taliban as a bunch of outlaws. And recognize that most Afghans are innocent townspeople, who just want to stay out of the line of fire.

During my tour, our larger mission was to secure the area from Taliban activities. We conducted hundreds of “presence patrols” among local villages. The ABP always joined us, to “put an Afghan face” on our operations. They were also there to learn first-hand how persistent police visibility can disrupt insurgent activities.

When our convoys rolled in and our ABP colleagues offered food, clothing, school supplies and medical assistance, villagers often greeted us warmly. But cautious tribal elders sometimes tempered their response, for fear of Taliban reprisals. Chieftains explained that Taliban fighters would steal into their villages at night and threaten them with violence. Some elders even spoke in hushed tones, fearful of being overheard.

Once, we circled back to a village that we had visited only days before. Surprisingly, we found a ghost town. While there, our unit repelled an ambush from an overlooking hill.
Later, we learned that Taliban fighters had stormed the village after our initial visit, demanding payment from the chieftain. When he refused, they threatened to kill him on the spot--until he placed a Quran on the ground and claimed that their actions violated Islam.

The thugs backed off, but promised to kill him if he and his family remained. That night, he packed his belongings and led his entire village to a distant hamlet. The Taliban simply waited for our return to the village, assuming we would investigate reports of its abandonment.

In many ways, the real enemy in Afghanistan is fear. The Taliban feed on it. But by demonstrating our values, by protecting people, and by “closing with and destroying” the bad guys, we deny our enemies an environment where fear can grow. It all begins with a spirit of trust.

When a seasoned U.S. law enforcement officer visited our Forward Operating Base ("FOB"), he emphasized the importance of gaining trust from the local community. Here’s his two-pronged approach:

• Give local Afghans a reason to believe that, whenever they share intelligence, you’ll respond as quickly and decisively as possible. It’s not about arriving immediately every time you’re called. That’s unrealistic. Rather, it’s about proving, over time, that you’ll strive to do your best when needed.

• Police can’t fight crime everywhere, simultaneously. So, when your resources are assigned to a specific area, stay focused on that area. Take control of territory you hold, and deny the enemy an opportunity to move freely in that space. It’s less about eliminating the Taliban altogether, and more about stopping them from operating in your local environment. Eventually, they’ll move on.

Bottom line: It’s not rocket science. It’s about walking a beat. It’s about making people feel safe, because you’re there when it matters.

Let me tell you about one day when it mattered:

Early one morning at our FOB, there was a commotion at the front gate, as a young man sought medical assistance for his very pregnant wife. Their young son had accidentally shot his mother with an AK-47. The bullet had ripped a hole through her abdomen, and intestines were spilling from her side.

Our medic was in his early 20s. Although he’d been trained to treat combat wounds when emotions are running high, he wasn’t prepared for this. As we waited for a MEDEVAC helicopter to airlift the woman to a hospital, “Doc” did his best to stabilize his patient. Language and cultural norms were a huge problem. Whenever Doc uncovered part of the woman's body, her husband rapidly covered it back up. Eventually, Doc blindly bandaged the wound from beneath a blanket.

The clock was ticking. Time was running out. The woman was nine months pregnant, and both she and her baby were in critical condition. Family members began to argue about whether she should be left to die at home, rather than being evacuated. Our ABP trainees stood-by throughout, ensuring crowd control and helping to maintain calm.

An hour later, the chopper swooped down and left in a cloud of dust, lifting its precious cargo along with our hopes and prayers. Later that afternoon, we received a radio update – mother and child were fine. We rejoiced along with the ABP. Their commander thanked us, insisting that our actions proved to local villagers that “America is good!”

That day, values mattered. That day, we scored a victory, without firing a single shot. We beat the devil at his own game. And we helped a woman and her baby cheat death.

Along the way, we forged a new level of trust.

It was glorious.

Advice and Assistance on Army Acronyms

There are four inter-related acronyms you need to know in order to understand U.S. strategy and tactics in Afghanistan. Each of these regards methods of advising and assisting Afghans in how to govern, administer, defend, and police their country. Notably, they also relate to some of the unique strengths and capabilities to be found in the U.S. National Guard.

The acronyms are:

• Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.)
• Provincial Reconstruction Team (P.R.T.)
• Agriculture Development Team (A.D.T.)
• Operations Coordination Centers-Provincial (O.C.C.P.)

Embedded Training Teams are 8- to 16-soldier teams tasked with mentoring Afghan military, police, border guards, and civilian counterparts. A number of Red Bull soldiers deploying with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division have previous deployment experiences as ETT members.

In Iraq, the U.S. military call such organizations “MiTTs” (pronounced like the baseball equipment), which stands for “Military Transition Teams.” You could always tell whether a U.S. soldier was talking Iraq or Afghanistan by which acronym they used.

In Afghanistan, NATO allies call their ETTs “Omelettes,” which stands for “Operational Mentor Liaison Teams (OMLT).” As a U.S. soldier, you could find yourself working as part of an OMLT or an ETT, depending on which country was in charge of the mission. Insert "It's a Small World" or "Tower of Babel" joke here.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams (P.R.T.) assist the provincial governor and his (or her) staff on building civilian infrastructure and governance. The teams range in size from 60 to more than 100 civilian and military personnel. The military members of these teams are "joint"--made up of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. Not all PRTs are U.S.-led. Currently in Eastern Afghanistan, for example, there are PRTs from South Korea, New Zealand, Turkey, and the Czech Republic.

In 2005-06, Task Force 1-168 comprised approximately 700 soldiers assigned to the Iowa Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry Regiment (1/168 Infantry). These Red Bull soldiers provided security at PRT sites across Afghanistan.

Agriculture Development Teams (A.D.T.)-–also called “Agri-business Development Teams”—are teams of Army and Air National Guard soldiers who have civilian experiences working in agriculture and business. Partnered with U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) employees, U.S. colleges and university extension experts, and Afghan agriculture authorities, these teams work in northern and eastern Afghanistan to help improve crop quality, livestock productivity, and ag-business practices.

Operations Coordination Center-Provincial (pronounced "O.C.C.P.", but spelled "OCC-P.") are teams that work with Afghan police and civil authorities regarding response to natural disasters, crime reduction, and other issues. Given their experiences supporting local and state civil authorities during natural and man-made disasters, National Guard soldiers are very familiar with this type of working relationship and mission.

Ready to put some of this together?
According to one Vermont National Guard soldier currently downrange, his ETT’s duties in Bamiyan Province include:

• Administering contracts and funds on behalf of a New Zealand-led PRT.
• Mentoring Afghan National Police (A.N.P.) personnel.
• Mentoring Bamiyan OCCP personnel.

Book Review: 'Afghan Journal'

'Afghan Journal' by Jeff Courter

Illinois Army National Guardsman Jeff Courter weathered a 2007 deployment to Afghanistan with plain-spoken good humor, quiet faith, and a passion for trying to put it all together. A former Marine cook and Navy Reservist, he deployed to Afghanistan as an Army communications sergeant. Along with his Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.) mates, his mission was to train Afghan Border Police (A.B.P.) in Southeastern Afghanistan's Paktika Province, along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

The ABP were even less-funded, -trained, and -equipped than the Afghan National Police (A.N.P.). At one point, the ABP personnel at Courter's location mutinied and disappeared. (Courter later found out the police revolted after a self-serving translator had knowingly driven a wedge between ABP and their American allies.) Throughout his time in Afghanistan, Courter struggled to do what he could to make a difference. At the same time, he maintained a blog called "Afghan Journal," which he later collected and published as a book.

As the title promises, the organization of the book is chronological. Sometimes, this can prove deadly for a writer--writers get caught up in the mundane details and forget to breathe, and to add perspective for those of us who weren't there to see things first-hand.

In delivering his punchy posts, however, Courter successfully avoids this pitfall. All along the way, he probes his own assumptions, questions his own observations, and even lays his views and traditions alongside those of his Afghan hosts and European colleagues. There are a few choice war stories, of course, including one about renting camels for an anti-Taliban patrol that, if you don't mind me saying, had me on the edge of my saddle.

The result of Courter's efforts is a conversational, easy-to-read chronicle of how one man and one Army approached a "war on a budget" in 2007. Because of its simple-but-not-simplistic approach, I think it one of the first I'd recommend to those Red Bull friends and family with only a casual knowledge military life and purpose.

Toward the end of his Afghan journey, Courter was able to start making sense of it. Not only for himself, but for others:

I was talking to a young U.S. Soldier who was complaining about the local villagers who come to our front gate. He asked, "what would they do if we weren't here? They should do whatever they would do if we weren't here!" I told him that some of those villagers would die [...] He did not seem concerned about that fact, so I went on to say that we can't ask what would happen if we weren't here [...] The question to ask is what we should do, now that we are here. [...]

I asked the Solder how many times [Forward Operating Base] Waza Khwa had been attacked this year, and he replied it hadn't been attacked at all. I suggested that the jobs we provide for local laborers and the medical support we sometimes give may make many of the local villagers reluctant to help our enemies. After considering this for a moment, the young man agreed.

I've been in official counterinsurgency (COIN) briefings that were less applicable and understandable than than Courter's quick, common-sense counseling session with that young soldier.

Courter later resolved to continue telling the story of our involvement in Afghanistan, not only through his book, but in his ongoing "Life, Love and Truth" blog. He's also now a recruiter for the Illinois Army National Guard.

His journey continues, as does ours.

---

By the way, Courter's book is recently available in an Amazon Kindle version! I mention this because so many of my Red Bull buddies are apparently considering deploying with an e-reader of some sort, whether a Kindle, Nook, iPad, Sony Reader, or similar device. It's tempting--I know that I, for one, both deployed and returned home with too many books my last time around. I'll keep you posted on what we learn!

Carney Posthumously Awarded Infantry Badge

I mentioned in an earlier post that my unit, the Headquarters Company of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 34th "Red Bull" Infantry Division, lost a soldier while he was deployed to Afghanistan as an Embedded Training Team (ETT) member in Aug. 2007. Sgt. First Class Scott Carney was killed in a non-combat Humvee accident in Herat Province.

Carney, 37, was survived by his wife Jeni and twin sons Jacob and Justin. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of Master Sergeant. I've previously tried to describe how his family continues to be present in the life of my unit. Words may fail, but memory lives.

In a ceremony earlier this week, Carney's family was presented with his Combat Infantryman Badge, or "C.I.B.") The CIB is awarded to soldiers the rank of colonel or below, who hold an Infantry Military Occupational Specialty (M.O.S.), and who actively engage a hostile force in combat. There are those--myself included--who regard the CIB to be one of the highest awards available, because is celebrates the role of the Infantry soldier as the single-most important person in the Army. Without him, we could not close with and destroy our country's enemies. Without him, every other kind of soldier would just have to pack up and go home.

Carney was involved in combat operations qualifying him for the CIB on June 18, 2007, when he provided suppressive machine-gun fires as a vehicular gunner in Farah Province, allowing the extraction of Afghan National Police (A.N.P.) and U.S. military personnel who had come under fire.

He died in a Humvee rollover on Aug. 24, 2007. Although Carney was buried in his green Class A service uniform displaying the CIB--mortuary affairs had documented that he would be posthumously awarded the badge--the official paperwork back here in the states was subsequently twice rejected, delayed by a higher, non-Iowa headquarters' confusion of the two incidents. After more than 2 years of waiting, that was finally and memorably corrected at last week's ceremony, during which Carney's sons were each presented CIB certificates and badges.

The CIB design is rectangular, with a musket imposed on a field of blue, the Infantry branch color. Behind the rectangle is a laurel wreath. The badge is similar but expressly different than the Expert Infantryman Badge (E.I.B.), which is awarded after a grueling proficiency test. The EIB does not feature the laurel wreath.

For a 10-minute YouTube video of the presentation of the award to Carney's family, including remarks made by Col. Tom Staton, current commander of the 2/34th BCT, click here.