A SOLDIER'S STORY

Beautiful and Tragic

By
Franke Gracia

Never packed for an overseas tour of duty in a war zone before. Pretty sobering. That’s why it’s good to have somebody try to break the tension every now and then. Like the joker who asked me, “Hey sir, do we pack our blank adapter?”

I suppose the most memorable was Lt Turner, who all of a sudden announced that the planets were aligned, the universe was in harmony, and the mission was going to be a smashing success. How did he know? Simple. He had used his last bit of shaving cream for his very last shave at Fort Hood. Now how can you argue with that kind of crystal-clear and explicit message from the spirit world?

I surely can’t.

This was the same Lt Turner who, while packing his gear, shoved in his special blankie and announced to me with a completely straight face, and I quote, “I never go to war without my woobie.”

I sure do like Lt Turner.

Task Force Salerno is so big it took multiple wide-body jets to get us overseas. I guess I’ll always remember that I had a chocolate bar in Shannon, Ireland, and that we broke out the Oreos in Adana, Turkey. When we finally landed at Manas Air Base in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, we were all exhausted and our body clocks were shot. It was there, in that former Soviet Republic, that I staggered out of my “clamshell” tent the next morning and saw a strange, exotic bird from Central Asia come to rest atop the next tent.

I won’t ever forget that bird.

I remember thinking to myself, “We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto.”

What also hit me was what hit every other soldier from the tropical flat land of South Texas. The altitude. When I took in the scenery of huge, rugged, snow-capped mountains in the distance I didn’t know if I was having trouble breathing because the air was so thin or because the scenery was so incredibly beautiful.

We shuttled our task force into Afghanistan in C-130 cargo planes. My particular “chalk” traveled in the middle of the night, spewing flares as we roared into Bagram Air Field. We shuffled off the plane with our gear and were immediately ushered into a classroom so our IDs could get electronically swiped. This officially registered us as being in a combat zone, which entitled us to an extra $225 a month Hostile Fire/Imminent Danger pay (insert your own whimsical or acerbic remark here).

My first few hours in Afghanistan were spent in a briefing room, listening to Army personnel specifically trained to speak in mind-numbing monotone, accompanying what we routinely refer to as “Death by PowerPoint” presentations. If my life depended on what they briefed me at 2am I’d be in big trouble.

Task Force Salerno has hit the ground running in Afghanistan. We have adopted a variation of the Marine Corps motto Semper Fideles, which means “Always Faithful” – ours is Semper Gumby – “Always Flexible”. Our soldiers have adapted to the numerous changes thrown at us. Our task force is scattered to the four winds all over this beautiful, ravaged nation. We are involved in missions ranging from force protection to convoy security to quick reactionary forces. We are stationed in places with mysterious exotic names like Farah, Qalat, Gardez, Tarin Kowt, Lashkar Gah, Jalalabad and Khowst. We are involved with military units with macho names like Task Force Bayonet, Thunder and Eagle.

Personally, things have happened to me that don’t usually happen to small town boys from rural Texas: I have been assigned my B-Hut . . . and my bunker. I have hugged the rugged mountains of Afghanistan in a Chinook helicopter. I have gone on patrol in the ancient city of Ghazni, where Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan once ruled – with a locked and loaded M4 carbine and a 9mm pistol.

I have seen the women of Afghanistan in their blue burqas, covering them from head to toe, with only a thin veil of material across their eyes for vision. I have seen the men of Afghanistan, their decorative headdresses, their long unkempt beards, their long flowing garments and sandals, their inquisitive stares.

I have seen the children of Afghanistan, dressed in bright and brilliant colors, literally riot . . . when offered free pens and pencils.

I have raced through the streets of Kabul in a GAC (Ground Armored Convoy), vehicle bristling with weapons, 50 caliber machine guns in uparmored Humvees covering our front and rear.

I have been in country two weeks now, and two words seem so appropriate for this Afghanistan – “beautiful” and “tragic.”

Franke Gracia lives in Temple, Texas and was deployed in Afghanistan with the National Guard from May 2005 to April 2006. He is a math professor at Temple College and is very close to his family that includes two brothers and two sisters. He earned a bronze star while he was deployed, which he gave to his mother. As to why he decided to write this series of articles he says, "I hope folks who read my scribbling will gain a greater appreciation of what a citizen-soldier goes through during a deployment."