It has been so many years since I was a soldier, but I can remember scenes like the one being written about here. I was never in combat, so the description in this blog carries with it a weight I’ll never know.
Adam Tiffin is a lawyer and was a lieutenant in the Reserves. While he was deployed to Iraq, he wrote a blog, The Replacements.
A sudden flash causes me to shield my eyes as a large truck turns a corner and approaches up the length of the runway. As it rumbles to a stop in front of me, I can see that the flat bed of the truck is piled high with rucksacks. A second set of headlights approaches and a bus pulls up behind the flatbed truck, packed full with soldiers.
The quiet night is suddenly alive with activity.
The bus disgorges a seemingly endless line of soldiers.
As they disembark from the bus, they cross in front of the headlights and their forms are momentarily backlit. As my eyes adjust to the harsh, almost unreal light cast by the halogen bulbs, their black silhouetted forms begin to take clearer shape.
As the soldiers mill around the rapidly emptying bus, some order begins to form out of chaos. A tall, dark, squad leader begins to shout, swearing beautifully as only a seasoned NCO can. Responding to the string of expletives, the soldiers immediately begin to form up into something resembling ranks. Over by the truck, a detail of soldiers begin to toss rucksacks onto the ground in front of the formation.
That part I know. I was that NCO once with the string of expletives.
This part I don’t know.
“Hey Chris, listen, have you heard about Mike Fasnacht?”
His smile falters and his face becomes somber.
“Yeah, I heard. He was killed in Tikrit.”
I nod my head.
1LT Mike Fasnacht was a classmate of ours at IOBC. He was friendly, smart, athletic, and always ready with a smile. He was one of the most technically and tactically competent soldiers in the class.
A friend of mine had been at Ranger school with him. He told me that when Mike had fallen down a steep ravine during the Mountain Phase, he had thought that there was no way Mike could have survived the fall.
Looking down the cliff face, he was astonished when he saw Mike standing down below and dusting himself off with a smile on his face.
That was Mike.
When I found out in an email that he had been killed by an IED, I saw his bright blue eyes and sunburned smiling face in my dreams for a week.
Adam Tiffin wanted to be a soldier.
When he was a kid, growing up on Long Island, his parents took him to Gettysburg and that sparked an interest in military history. “My heroes were not basketball players, they were soldiers,” he says. “I thought, I want that experience. I think I wanted to test myself against those soldiers, to see how I stacked up.”
That was me as a kid. I can still remember the Detroit recruiting station where I was inducted and sworn in. I still remember the feeling I had when I considered the words of the oath that I had sworn, to protect and defend the Constitution. It was not to follow orders, but defend the Constitution.
I ache when I think about the young men and women who have volunteered for the same reasons I volunteered and have been let down by the self-styled political leaders who care more about their legacy than defending the Constitution.