A year ago, Natasha Richardson reminded all of us that sport concussions happen in sports other than football and that average people can suffer, not just famous athletes. With the Winter Games approaching it will be world class athletes who may stir up the conversation again, but in a newer sport, one without a tradition of safety: snowboarding.
There are already worries that snowboarders in Vancouver will be cracking their heads as they compete in the counterculture sport, as The San Francisco Chronicle called it, which was admitted to the Olympics in 1998.
The Chronicle noted that “maneuvers in the halfpipe have grown from exhilarating to terrifying in the four years since Shaun White won the gold in Turin, and the champ’s face smacked against the lip of the pipe at the Winter X Games last weekend, sending his helmet flying.” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/07/SP921BR2N0.DTL
The International Olympics Committee is criticized for not setting safety standards for snowboarding, and letting the International Skiing Federation govern it.
The Miami Herald also weighed in on the issues, in a story headlined “Winter Olympics Flirting With Danger.” http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/olympics/story/1467130.html
The article cites snowboarder Kevin Pearce, who hit his forehead on the wall of a half-pipe and sustained traumatic brain injury. He is now at a long-term rehabilitation facility.
“Combine snow, ice, expressway speeds, six-story heights,” The Herald writes. “Think NASCAR on a slippery track or gymnastics with a helmet but without a mat. Imagine plunging down a slope as hard as concrete in a skinsuit or sliding down a roller coaster on a steel cookie sheet or flying through the air without a parachute.”
Not only snowboarders but skiers face serious injury, prompting some to call for safety reforms.
Will snowboarding reform? Will the thrill of the daredevil be replaced by some common sense about permanent damage to the minds of these young people?
We have been discussing the different trends of two of America’s most popular sports with respect to head injury risk in recent weeks. Today, at http://subtlebraininjury.com.blog we talk about the NFL’s growing commitment to player brain safety. Last week we talked about NASCAR’s preference for ratings rather than safety. The NFL seems to have learned that protecting its assets (the players) is more important than making the sport more sensational. NASCAR has clearly not.
We can only hope that the leaders of this Olympic sport show plan ahead rather than react to some tragedy.
NASCAR Vows To Return To Roots As a ‘Contact Sport’
Some people, including officials for the sport, think that NASCAR needs energizing. That’s why the organization plans to loosen up some of its rules so that the races become more of “a contact sport” (we guess like football) this year, NASCAR chairman Brian France said recently.
“We’re going to open it up, because we want to see what you want to see,” France said during a Jan. 21 http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=4851656
press conference. “More contact. This is a contact sport. We want to see drivers mixing it up. We want to see the emotion of the world’s best drivers just as much as everybody else does. And that’s the goal in 2010 and beyond.”
Here is a YouTube video of France making the remarks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7dWRhRnj58
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that these rule changes, meant to increase “contact,” will likely lead to more accidents and injuries, possibly brain trauma.
NASCAR fans and drivers alike have been griping that the sport has become too namby-pamby and watered down, losing much of its excitement, because of restrictive rules on practices such as “bump-drafting.”
Bump-drafting is a controversial practice that some NASCAR veterans have labeled “idotic.” http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-racing/nascar/nascar-basics/stock-car-racing-techniques4.htm
It’s fancy tailgating, where NASCAR drivers nudge the car ahead of them, moving it forward, and their forward along with it. The front car slows down, and that gives the car behind a chance to pass and move ahead, creating some excitement.
But bump-drafting can turn dangerous, because the front driver’s wheels can lose traction and the car can go into a spin. So the practice has led to fatal NASCAR accidents.
NASCAR banned bumping at the Talladega race in November, and drew the ire of diehard race fans.
Despite the past fatalities and accidents, the bump-drafting ban didn’t sit well with fans or some drivers. “There’s an age-old saying that NASCAR, “If you ain’t rubbing, you ain’t racing,” NASCARr president told the Associated Press. http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cup/news/story?id=4845878
At the January press conference, France basically said NASCAR was lifting its old restrictions and putting racing back in the drivers’ hands. The ban on bumping is being scrapped, in time for the NASCAR season opener, the Daytona 500, which is a restrictor-plate race. Those plates give a racecar more power and speed.
NASCAR officials are hoping the changes will bring back the excitement to racing, while seemingly not being too concerned about the increased chance of injuries of this new “contact sport.”
In his AP interview, Helton maintained that the sport is much safer than it was five or six years ago, with the improvements on the cars and tracks. It remains to be seen this year.
Is it energizing the sport needs, or greater ratings? One of our favorite sports, boxing, it is the goal to cause a concussion/brain damage to your opponent. In football, it is at least a by-product of the best plays. Now we have perhaps our most dangerous sport, car racing, wanting to increase its ratings by making it a contact sport. It may not be the goal to kill the opponent, but it certainly is a foreseeable outcome.
“We’re going to open it up, because we want to see what you want to see,” France said during a Jan. 21 http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=4851656
press conference. “More contact. This is a contact sport. We want to see drivers mixing it up. We want to see the emotion of the world’s best drivers just as much as everybody else does. And that’s the goal in 2010 and beyond.”
Here is a YouTube video of France making the remarks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7dWRhRnj58
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that these rule changes, meant to increase “contact,” will likely lead to more accidents and injuries, possibly brain trauma.
NASCAR fans and drivers alike have been griping that the sport has become too namby-pamby and watered down, losing much of its excitement, because of restrictive rules on practices such as “bump-drafting.”
Bump-drafting is a controversial practice that some NASCAR veterans have labeled “idotic.” http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-racing/nascar/nascar-basics/stock-car-racing-techniques4.htm
It’s fancy tailgating, where NASCAR drivers nudge the car ahead of them, moving it forward, and their forward along with it. The front car slows down, and that gives the car behind a chance to pass and move ahead, creating some excitement.
But bump-drafting can turn dangerous, because the front driver’s wheels can lose traction and the car can go into a spin. So the practice has led to fatal NASCAR accidents.
NASCAR banned bumping at the Talladega race in November, and drew the ire of diehard race fans.
Despite the past fatalities and accidents, the bump-drafting ban didn’t sit well with fans or some drivers. “There’s an age-old saying that NASCAR, “If you ain’t rubbing, you ain’t racing,” NASCARr president told the Associated Press. http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cup/news/story?id=4845878
At the January press conference, France basically said NASCAR was lifting its old restrictions and putting racing back in the drivers’ hands. The ban on bumping is being scrapped, in time for the NASCAR season opener, the Daytona 500, which is a restrictor-plate race. Those plates give a racecar more power and speed.
NASCAR officials are hoping the changes will bring back the excitement to racing, while seemingly not being too concerned about the increased chance of injuries of this new “contact sport.”
In his AP interview, Helton maintained that the sport is much safer than it was five or six years ago, with the improvements on the cars and tracks. It remains to be seen this year.
Is it energizing the sport needs, or greater ratings? One of our favorite sports, boxing, it is the goal to cause a concussion/brain damage to your opponent. In football, it is at least a by-product of the best plays. Now we have perhaps our most dangerous sport, car racing, wanting to increase its ratings by making it a contact sport. It may not be the goal to kill the opponent, but it certainly is a foreseeable outcome.
Conan O’Brien Concussion – Amnesia without Confusion
As I have been discussing for much of the last month on this blog, amnesia and confusion are not the same thing. An example more vivid than even a football quarterback was the concussion Conan O’Brien suffered on camera on his show last week. See for one of the multitude of stories on it at the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/conan-obrien-falls-hits-h_n_302471.html To really understand the lesson we can learn from this concussion, one must listen to the contrast between what Conan did shortly after his brain injury and what he remembers about it.
He clearly was dazed for a few seconds, but within 10-15 seconds he was on character, making a joke, running the show, directing his people what to do. As I watched, I clearly thought of the concussed quarterback, calling the plays, directing his teammates, avoiding rushing linemen and completing a pass. Yet despite all that activity, he remembers nothing of what he did after the event, nor even the moments leading up to the concussion.
Can anyone now doubt that you don’t have to lose consciousness to suffer a concussion?
He clearly was dazed for a few seconds, but within 10-15 seconds he was on character, making a joke, running the show, directing his people what to do. As I watched, I clearly thought of the concussed quarterback, calling the plays, directing his teammates, avoiding rushing linemen and completing a pass. Yet despite all that activity, he remembers nothing of what he did after the event, nor even the moments leading up to the concussion.
Can anyone now doubt that you don’t have to lose consciousness to suffer a concussion?
Loss of the News – The Fabric of Our Democracy in Peril
The below story from the Associated Press is nearly as disturbing as the news from Pakistan and the debacle that Baxter’s move to globalization of Heparin manufacture has been. Before I went to law school, I went to Journalism school, journalism school in Chicago, at Northwestern University. I aspired to be a newspaper reporter, worked more hours than I studied on the college newspaper, and likely would never have gone to law school had 1975 been nearly as bad of a year for newspapers as this one.
Yet where for me, the lost opportunity to work for a daily newspaper may have worked out well, for our democracy, the loss of daily newspapers could be catastrophic. It is the newspaper reporters who cover the bulk of the news, who support the AP, who do the bulk of the investigative reporting that keeps our government, our politicians, our corporations accountable to the American people. TV news gives us the superficial look at the headlines, but it is the daily newspaper we get the real news. As a trial lawyer, I see myself as the advocate of the people. Our strongest ally in such fight are newspaper reporters. Certainly the Tribune’s coverage of the Heparin catastrophe has shown that to be true.
The internet has changed how we get information and its biggest casualty may be the daily newspaper. Blogging gives me a chance to speak my voice, but blogging can never replace the role the newspaper plays. This is true because of the content, the training but above all, the credibility of something being published in a newspaper like the Chicago Tribune. There is no doubt that the pure “editorial” independence of the news may be shifted somewhat by the evolution of internet information sources, but we will never be able to trust bloggers, like we have come to believe that we can trust a reporter. That applies to my blogs, as well. I am no longer a professional writer and God knows, I no longer have the benefit of a demanding editor.
The Tribune is in bankruptcy, its economic survival in peril. I pray that its reputation does not precede its demise.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://thelegaltimes.net
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 4/30/2009 9:09 PM
BC-US–Tribune-Reader Survey,1st Ld-Writethru/704
HERBERT G. McCANN
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) — Reporters at the Chicago Tribune say they believe the marketing department in recent weeks solicited subscribers’ opinions on stories before they were published, a practice they said raises ethical questions, as well as legal and competitive issues.
An e-mail signed by 55 reporters and editors, sent Wednesday to Editor Gerould Kern and Managing Editor Jane Hirt and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, questions why the newspaper was conducting the surveys and what stories were used. They also wanted to know which readers were surveyed and whether any story had been altered as a result of reader comment.
“It is a fundamental principle of journalism that we do not give people outside the newspaper the option of deciding whether or not we should publish a story, whether they be advertisers, politicians or just regular readers,” the e-mail read. “Focus grouping as done in the past is one thing. But this appears to break the bond between reporters and editors in a fundamental way.”
Readers were shown synopses or “dopings” of several unpublished stories, including some the staff is currently working on, according to the e-mail.
The reporters and editors also said many have become uncomfortable that the marketing department appeared to be playing an undefined role in the newsroom.
No member of the news staff would comment on the issue.
“We’ll let the e-mail speak for itself,” said reporter John Chase.
Kern, who was to meet with the news staff Thursday afternoon, issued a statement late in the day saying the newspaper had discontinued “a brief market research project that tested reader reaction to working story ideas that have not yet been published.”
“Premature dissemination of information about stories under development compromises the reporting process,” Kern said. “Our goal is to provide people with news reports that are fair, accurate and complete. Therefore, we publish stories only when they are ready … Research is an important tool in understanding consumer needs. It provides context, and we listen to it carefully. Each day, news decisions are made by journalists.”
Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism organization in St. Petersburg, Fla., said he could not say whether the Tribune survey was unique, but is not aware of such an effort elsewhere.
The closest example he could cite was a feature, now discontinued, by the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, which allowed readers to pick a story for its front page.
“Now more than ever we have people saying we have to be sensitive to what our readers want,” Edmunds said. “It seems a little odd to be putting it to a vote before the fact. It could end up with story mix more Britney Spears that what is going on in City Hall.”
If true, the Tribune survey is only the latest practice by a Tribune Co. newspaper to raise the eyebrows of journalism professionals.
Earlier in April, The Los Angeles Times ran an advertisement resembling a news story on its front page. The ad, for the NBC program “Southland,” was labeled as an advertisement at the top, but was in a vertical column previously reserved for news. The text was next to a banner ad for the show at the bottom of the page.
A statement by the newspaper afterward indicated it was testing new approaches to the delivery of news, including new marketing opportunities for its advertisers. News industry analyst Ken Doctor of Outsell Inc. called the ad a “loony idea” that blurred the line on what readers can trust in the newspaper.
The controversy in the Tribune newsroom comes after 53 jobs were cut last week as part of a newsroom reorganization designed to help the company weather an economic downturn. The company had previously been forced to seek Chapter 11 protection from creditors. With the cuts, the newspaper has a newsroom staff of about 430.
In addition to the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, Chicago-based Tribune Co. owns The (Baltimore) Sun and other dailies, as well as 23 television stations and the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Multiple problems hurting hospitals’ bottom lines
Date: 12/28/2008 12:02 AM
By The Associated Press
U.S. hospitals are beset by financial pressures from all sides. Issues cited by hospital executives, industry consultants and other experts include:
—More patients aren’t paying their bills or are taking longer to do so. Reasons include increases in people who are unemployed and have lost their health insurance, employers increasing workers’s copayments and premiums, and more people getting insurance plans that carry very high deductibles.
—More patients are putting off care until illnesses are very serious, then showing up at emergency departments, unable to pay.
—Patients are delaying diagnostic procedures and elective surgery such as joint replacements, which generally are moneymakers.
—Overall admissions are down at many hospitals, also cutting revenues.
—Government subsidies for uncompensated, or charity, care have been cut in some states due to their budget problems, and some states are starting or expected to cut reimbursements for Medicaid programs, typically one of their biggest budget items.
—Credit has become tighter, increasing borrowing costs at best and leaving hospitals unable to borrow in some cases.
—Hospital endowments and other funds invested for later use have been hurt by the stock market’s plunge, with many hospitals seeing considerable losses.
—Wealthy hospital patrons, some of whom also have suffered big investment losses, have started cutting back on donations.
—Many individual doctors and small group practices are pressuring hospitals with which they are affiliated to buy their practices because they can’t afford expensive technology upgrades, particularly computerized patient record systems.
In addition, some experts fear expected health care reforms under the new Obama administration could include cuts in the levels of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, a crucial issue because hospitals on average get about 55 percent of all patient revenues from those two government programs, which already don’t cover full costs of care.
___
Source: American Hospital Association, AP interviews.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By The Associated Press
U.S. hospitals are beset by financial pressures from all sides. Issues cited by hospital executives, industry consultants and other experts include:
—More patients aren’t paying their bills or are taking longer to do so. Reasons include increases in people who are unemployed and have lost their health insurance, employers increasing workers’s copayments and premiums, and more people getting insurance plans that carry very high deductibles.
—More patients are putting off care until illnesses are very serious, then showing up at emergency departments, unable to pay.
—Patients are delaying diagnostic procedures and elective surgery such as joint replacements, which generally are moneymakers.
—Overall admissions are down at many hospitals, also cutting revenues.
—Government subsidies for uncompensated, or charity, care have been cut in some states due to their budget problems, and some states are starting or expected to cut reimbursements for Medicaid programs, typically one of their biggest budget items.
—Credit has become tighter, increasing borrowing costs at best and leaving hospitals unable to borrow in some cases.
—Hospital endowments and other funds invested for later use have been hurt by the stock market’s plunge, with many hospitals seeing considerable losses.
—Wealthy hospital patrons, some of whom also have suffered big investment losses, have started cutting back on donations.
—Many individual doctors and small group practices are pressuring hospitals with which they are affiliated to buy their practices because they can’t afford expensive technology upgrades, particularly computerized patient record systems.
In addition, some experts fear expected health care reforms under the new Obama administration could include cuts in the levels of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, a crucial issue because hospitals on average get about 55 percent of all patient revenues from those two government programs, which already don’t cover full costs of care.
___
Source: American Hospital Association, AP interviews.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Iraq Long Haul PART V: Joy over survival, tears at extension
Date: 8/7/2008 12:00 AM
By SHARON COHEN
EDITOR’S NOTE — Can the long separation be extended further? Yes, and for some there’s major fighting ahead. Fifth of a seven-part series on the longest deployment of the Iraq war.
By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer
Christmas Day arrived — and for two 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers, there was a gift like no other: their very survival.
Sgt. J.R. Salzman had arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center hours earlier, days after being critically injured in a roadside bomb in Iraq.
A few doors down, Sgt. John Kriesel already had settled in as a patient after he, too, was maimed by an explosion.
For both, there would be a long hospital stay and an even longer recovery. The two bombing survivors had much in common but they took different paths in starting over.
Kriesel had to learn to walk again with prosthetic legs.
Salzman would learn to write, feed and dress himself with an artificial arm.
Through their many months of rehabilitation, their wives remained at their sides, standing vigil through surgeries, sharing their triumphs and their setbacks, counting the days until they could return home.
Some of those days were especially memorable.
Just before Christmas, Kriesel had a special visitor — President Bush.
Ever since he had arrived at Walter Reed, when nurses would ask what they could do for him, Kriesel had one reply: “I want to meet my boss. I want to meet the president.”
On a visit to the hospital, Bush and his wife, Laura, met with the family. The president called Kriesel a hero. He turned to the soldier’s two young sons. Are you proud of your father? he asked. The boys solemnly nodded in unison.
Leaning over Kriesel, who was still unable to sit up, Bush pinned a Purple Heart on his hospital gown.
As Bush prepared to depart, 4-year-old Broden, sensing the momentous occasion, turned to his mother and asked: “Is George Washington leaving now?”
___
When Josie Salzman, J.R.’s wife, arrived with her in-laws at Walter Reed on Christmas Day, she didn’t know what to expect.
Would she able to hug J.R. without hurting him? Would he have a bunch of tubes stuck in him? Would he even recognize her?
J.R., as it turned out, looked scruffy and exhausted but he seemed OK, thank goodness. After he talked with his parents, Josie stayed behind and gently gave him a sponge bath, head to toe, and brushed his teeth.
It was something she never anticipated she’d be doing for her husband. Certainly, not as a 20-year-old.
As she prepared to pull out a chair in his room to sleep, Josie realized she had barely eaten all day. But it was Christmas night and the cafeteria was closed.
A nurse came to her rescue. He warmed up an untouched meal a patient had passed up. It was just hospital food — steak and potatoes — but it seemed like a holiday feast.
Josie cried. At first, she wasn’t sure if it was the meal, her exhaustion or J.R.’s wounds. But then she realized why.
“I had my husband alive and in front of me,” she wrote in her blog. “I could see his face and touch his skin, he was real. What more could I possibly ask for?”
___
New Year’s Day and the turning of the calendar to 2007 meant one thing to the soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team.
They were going home.
They were due back in spring, and couldn’t wait. Many simply wanted to resume lives that were in limbo. They had crops to plant, colleges to attend, families to see.
Some had special vacations planned. In his office at Tallil Air Base, the unit’s commander, Col. David Elicerio, displayed the postcards of Hawaii that his wife had sent, anticipating their spring trip.
The soldiers had been gone 16 months, including six months training in Mississippi. It was a long time. But soon they would leave for home.
Or would they?
Sgt. 1st Class Janelle Johnson was on the Web cam with her husband, Chad, back home when he said, “You got extended, huh?”
“Don’t believe any of the rumors,” she said, calmly. “They’re not true.”
“Well, that’s kind of funny,” he replied, “because the governor’s on TV right now …”
Janelle ran a mile to the battalion office. As she raced up the stairs, she heard a voice on a speaker phone talking about an extension. She ran to the bathroom to cry, and returned to the office to see an older soldier crying.
Janelle dreaded telling her 5-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. The family would have to put off a trip to Disney World, planned for April.
“The president says Mom and the troops are doing such a good job and we need to stay here a little longer,” she told Elizabeth on the phone.
Elizabeth was quiet at first. Then she said: “You’re going to miss my birthday again.”
“Don’t worry,” her mother said, searching for words of comfort. “I’m still coming home.”
The extension was ordered as part of the surge in troop strength to try to quell violence that had been convulsing Iraq for months. The brigade was extended another 125 days. The soldiers would not return to Minnesota until the summer.
But somehow, news of the new orders reached families before the troops — even before the commander.
“When were you going to tell me?” Elicerio’s wife, Leslee, asked.
Reporters in Minnesota took up the question in a satellite news conference where the colonel tried to explain what had happened.
Standing in the darkness at the Tallil Air Base, Elicerio acknowledged the error. “Do I feel bad about apologizing for the Army? Hell no,” he said. “Certainly we admit that a mistake was made.”
Yes, he said, his soldiers were upset at first, but they’d get over it. They had a mission, and they were performing very well.
He acknowledged this would create hardships — but they’d be back, he promised, before the leaves changed colors in the fall.
___
That promise was little consolation to Teri Walen. She hadn’t wanted her son, Chad Malmberg, to go to Iraq in the first place. She had been awaiting his return, clearing the decks so she could devote herself to him full time.
She had worried from the day he left — and now she’d worry for another four months.
Walen became so depressed she couldn’t drag herself out of bed. She felt as if she were walking in quicksand. The pressures mounted at home, too: Her mother was dying, as was her husband’s father. Two of their children were getting married. It all became too much to bear.
After talking with the church counselor, she visited a doctor, who prescribed antidepressants. Within weeks, she was better.
On the afternoon of Jan. 26, Teri Walen, mother of a soldier and wife of a Lutheran pastor, spoke to about 100 women at a Christian retreat. She talked about technology that bridges the gap between troops and their families.
As wonderful as it is, she said, maybe it isn’t always a good idea for loved ones to expect daily contact with Iraq. It puts too much stress on the troops.
As Walen finished her talk, a new day had dawned in Iraq.
Before that day ended, Chad would lead a convoy into hell.
___
Chad Malmberg saw the white-yellow flash and giant plumes of smoke a mile down the road. Even before the ground shook, he knew what it was.
He had traveled this main supply route south of Baghdad dozens of times and seen the yawning craters left by IEDs that had killed and maimed others.
As the convoy inched forward, Malmberg knew the enemy was somewhere. The left side of the six-lane road was wide open desert; they had to be on the right, somewhere among hilly palm groves, berms, canals and trees.
The soldiers scanned the inky darkness, consulting by r adio, trying to pinpoint the enemy’s location. Could it be that bomb ahead was all the insurgents had planned?
Within minutes, they got their answer.
The crackle of AK-47s soon filled the night air, along with the whoosh of rocket-propelled grenades.
The American troops responded with machine gun fire, moving their Humvees to get a better view of the enemy.
About 20 enemy muzzle flashes — evenly spaced — lined the route. This was a well-coordinated attack. There was a convoy ahead of them, and others behind.
They were trapped.
“Wolf 5-6,” Malmberg radioed. “Troops in contact! Just north of checkpoint 30 on MSR Tampa.”
He was the convoy commander, in the lead vehicle among five armored Humvees embedded with 20 civilian flatbed trucks that had just delivered construction materials.
Malmberg was a methodical guy. He liked to draw up lists in his head.
He ticked off possibilities. What do we do if we have a casualty? What do we do if a Humvee blows up?
He instructed one truck to call in air support, one to alert other Army units in the area.
At the rear of the convoy, a gunner in Truck 4 blasted away with a .50-caliber machine gun, but the insurgents kept advancing.
“We need to end this,” Malmberg told his driver.
“Truck 4,” he barked over the radio. “En route to your location with AT-4.”
The AT-4 — an anti-tank shoulder-fired rocket — was the biggest weapon in their arsenal. Malmberg’s driver made a U-turn and raced down the pocked highway to the back of the convoy a quarter-mile away.
Malmberg adjusted the sight on the AT-4 for distance, removed the safety pin and released the battle lock on his door. He told his gunner and Truck 4 to keep shooting.
When he jumped out of the passenger door, it sounded like a rifle range. Using the hood of the Humvee as a shield, Malmberg aimed and fired the rocket. It spiraled through the air, then struck the target — a cluster of muzzle flashes.
Malmberg rocked back from the force. His ears, covered by a headset, rang as he dashed back into the truck. He was thrilled he didn’t demolish the hood.
He plugged in his headset connected to the internal radio network.
“AT-4 out!” he shouted, so everyone in the convoy knew he had deployed the rocket.
Helicopters had swooped in and out, but had been unable to open fire on the insurgents because rifle and machine gun fire were bouncing around everywhere.
After he launched the rocket, there was a lull. Malmberg gave himself a mental high five, thinking: We’ve got them. His truck headed back to the front of the convoy.
But minutes later, there was more enemy fire.
It was louder. And faster.
Instead of pop. Pop. Pop. It was poppoppopoppop.
The insurgents still were out there. Lots of them. And they were moving closer.
___
TO BE CONTINUED …
___
NOTE: The story of 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour in Iraq was reconstructed from scores of interviews with more than 20 soldiers and members of their families. Most quotations are as remembered by the speakers. In addition, the series draws upon numerous official documents, including after-action reports; videos of news conferences; correspondence provided by the families (including e-mails and letters); television coverage of the unit’s return; personal journals and blog postings.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By SHARON COHEN
EDITOR’S NOTE — Can the long separation be extended further? Yes, and for some there’s major fighting ahead. Fifth of a seven-part series on the longest deployment of the Iraq war.
By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer
Christmas Day arrived — and for two 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers, there was a gift like no other: their very survival.
Sgt. J.R. Salzman had arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center hours earlier, days after being critically injured in a roadside bomb in Iraq.
A few doors down, Sgt. John Kriesel already had settled in as a patient after he, too, was maimed by an explosion.
For both, there would be a long hospital stay and an even longer recovery. The two bombing survivors had much in common but they took different paths in starting over.
Kriesel had to learn to walk again with prosthetic legs.
Salzman would learn to write, feed and dress himself with an artificial arm.
Through their many months of rehabilitation, their wives remained at their sides, standing vigil through surgeries, sharing their triumphs and their setbacks, counting the days until they could return home.
Some of those days were especially memorable.
Just before Christmas, Kriesel had a special visitor — President Bush.
Ever since he had arrived at Walter Reed, when nurses would ask what they could do for him, Kriesel had one reply: “I want to meet my boss. I want to meet the president.”
On a visit to the hospital, Bush and his wife, Laura, met with the family. The president called Kriesel a hero. He turned to the soldier’s two young sons. Are you proud of your father? he asked. The boys solemnly nodded in unison.
Leaning over Kriesel, who was still unable to sit up, Bush pinned a Purple Heart on his hospital gown.
As Bush prepared to depart, 4-year-old Broden, sensing the momentous occasion, turned to his mother and asked: “Is George Washington leaving now?”
___
When Josie Salzman, J.R.’s wife, arrived with her in-laws at Walter Reed on Christmas Day, she didn’t know what to expect.
Would she able to hug J.R. without hurting him? Would he have a bunch of tubes stuck in him? Would he even recognize her?
J.R., as it turned out, looked scruffy and exhausted but he seemed OK, thank goodness. After he talked with his parents, Josie stayed behind and gently gave him a sponge bath, head to toe, and brushed his teeth.
It was something she never anticipated she’d be doing for her husband. Certainly, not as a 20-year-old.
As she prepared to pull out a chair in his room to sleep, Josie realized she had barely eaten all day. But it was Christmas night and the cafeteria was closed.
A nurse came to her rescue. He warmed up an untouched meal a patient had passed up. It was just hospital food — steak and potatoes — but it seemed like a holiday feast.
Josie cried. At first, she wasn’t sure if it was the meal, her exhaustion or J.R.’s wounds. But then she realized why.
“I had my husband alive and in front of me,” she wrote in her blog. “I could see his face and touch his skin, he was real. What more could I possibly ask for?”
___
New Year’s Day and the turning of the calendar to 2007 meant one thing to the soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team.
They were going home.
They were due back in spring, and couldn’t wait. Many simply wanted to resume lives that were in limbo. They had crops to plant, colleges to attend, families to see.
Some had special vacations planned. In his office at Tallil Air Base, the unit’s commander, Col. David Elicerio, displayed the postcards of Hawaii that his wife had sent, anticipating their spring trip.
The soldiers had been gone 16 months, including six months training in Mississippi. It was a long time. But soon they would leave for home.
Or would they?
Sgt. 1st Class Janelle Johnson was on the Web cam with her husband, Chad, back home when he said, “You got extended, huh?”
“Don’t believe any of the rumors,” she said, calmly. “They’re not true.”
“Well, that’s kind of funny,” he replied, “because the governor’s on TV right now …”
Janelle ran a mile to the battalion office. As she raced up the stairs, she heard a voice on a speaker phone talking about an extension. She ran to the bathroom to cry, and returned to the office to see an older soldier crying.
Janelle dreaded telling her 5-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. The family would have to put off a trip to Disney World, planned for April.
“The president says Mom and the troops are doing such a good job and we need to stay here a little longer,” she told Elizabeth on the phone.
Elizabeth was quiet at first. Then she said: “You’re going to miss my birthday again.”
“Don’t worry,” her mother said, searching for words of comfort. “I’m still coming home.”
The extension was ordered as part of the surge in troop strength to try to quell violence that had been convulsing Iraq for months. The brigade was extended another 125 days. The soldiers would not return to Minnesota until the summer.
But somehow, news of the new orders reached families before the troops — even before the commander.
“When were you going to tell me?” Elicerio’s wife, Leslee, asked.
Reporters in Minnesota took up the question in a satellite news conference where the colonel tried to explain what had happened.
Standing in the darkness at the Tallil Air Base, Elicerio acknowledged the error. “Do I feel bad about apologizing for the Army? Hell no,” he said. “Certainly we admit that a mistake was made.”
Yes, he said, his soldiers were upset at first, but they’d get over it. They had a mission, and they were performing very well.
He acknowledged this would create hardships — but they’d be back, he promised, before the leaves changed colors in the fall.
___
That promise was little consolation to Teri Walen. She hadn’t wanted her son, Chad Malmberg, to go to Iraq in the first place. She had been awaiting his return, clearing the decks so she could devote herself to him full time.
She had worried from the day he left — and now she’d worry for another four months.
Walen became so depressed she couldn’t drag herself out of bed. She felt as if she were walking in quicksand. The pressures mounted at home, too: Her mother was dying, as was her husband’s father. Two of their children were getting married. It all became too much to bear.
After talking with the church counselor, she visited a doctor, who prescribed antidepressants. Within weeks, she was better.
On the afternoon of Jan. 26, Teri Walen, mother of a soldier and wife of a Lutheran pastor, spoke to about 100 women at a Christian retreat. She talked about technology that bridges the gap between troops and their families.
As wonderful as it is, she said, maybe it isn’t always a good idea for loved ones to expect daily contact with Iraq. It puts too much stress on the troops.
As Walen finished her talk, a new day had dawned in Iraq.
Before that day ended, Chad would lead a convoy into hell.
___
Chad Malmberg saw the white-yellow flash and giant plumes of smoke a mile down the road. Even before the ground shook, he knew what it was.
He had traveled this main supply route south of Baghdad dozens of times and seen the yawning craters left by IEDs that had killed and maimed others.
As the convoy inched forward, Malmberg knew the enemy was somewhere. The left side of the six-lane road was wide open desert; they had to be on the right, somewhere among hilly palm groves, berms, canals and trees.
The soldiers scanned the inky darkness, consulting by r adio, trying to pinpoint the enemy’s location. Could it be that bomb ahead was all the insurgents had planned?
Within minutes, they got their answer.
The crackle of AK-47s soon filled the night air, along with the whoosh of rocket-propelled grenades.
The American troops responded with machine gun fire, moving their Humvees to get a better view of the enemy.
About 20 enemy muzzle flashes — evenly spaced — lined the route. This was a well-coordinated attack. There was a convoy ahead of them, and others behind.
They were trapped.
“Wolf 5-6,” Malmberg radioed. “Troops in contact! Just north of checkpoint 30 on MSR Tampa.”
He was the convoy commander, in the lead vehicle among five armored Humvees embedded with 20 civilian flatbed trucks that had just delivered construction materials.
Malmberg was a methodical guy. He liked to draw up lists in his head.
He ticked off possibilities. What do we do if we have a casualty? What do we do if a Humvee blows up?
He instructed one truck to call in air support, one to alert other Army units in the area.
At the rear of the convoy, a gunner in Truck 4 blasted away with a .50-caliber machine gun, but the insurgents kept advancing.
“We need to end this,” Malmberg told his driver.
“Truck 4,” he barked over the radio. “En route to your location with AT-4.”
The AT-4 — an anti-tank shoulder-fired rocket — was the biggest weapon in their arsenal. Malmberg’s driver made a U-turn and raced down the pocked highway to the back of the convoy a quarter-mile away.
Malmberg adjusted the sight on the AT-4 for distance, removed the safety pin and released the battle lock on his door. He told his gunner and Truck 4 to keep shooting.
When he jumped out of the passenger door, it sounded like a rifle range. Using the hood of the Humvee as a shield, Malmberg aimed and fired the rocket. It spiraled through the air, then struck the target — a cluster of muzzle flashes.
Malmberg rocked back from the force. His ears, covered by a headset, rang as he dashed back into the truck. He was thrilled he didn’t demolish the hood.
He plugged in his headset connected to the internal radio network.
“AT-4 out!” he shouted, so everyone in the convoy knew he had deployed the rocket.
Helicopters had swooped in and out, but had been unable to open fire on the insurgents because rifle and machine gun fire were bouncing around everywhere.
After he launched the rocket, there was a lull. Malmberg gave himself a mental high five, thinking: We’ve got them. His truck headed back to the front of the convoy.
But minutes later, there was more enemy fire.
It was louder. And faster.
Instead of pop. Pop. Pop. It was poppoppopoppop.
The insurgents still were out there. Lots of them. And they were moving closer.
___
TO BE CONTINUED …
___
NOTE: The story of 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour in Iraq was reconstructed from scores of interviews with more than 20 soldiers and members of their families. Most quotations are as remembered by the speakers. In addition, the series draws upon numerous official documents, including after-action reports; videos of news conferences; correspondence provided by the families (including e-mails and letters); television coverage of the unit’s return; personal journals and blog postings.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
The Long Haul I
For weeks on this blog, I wrote about the Iraq War and brain injury, with my last blog on that topic being http://tbilaw.blogspot.com/2008/07/brain-injury-is-not-new-to-iraq.html My first blog on that topic began in June with http://tbilaw.blogspot.com/2008/06/suicide-and-terror-continues-for-our.html Below is the first in a seven part series from AP, by Sharon Cohen on the toll of these long wars. I will publish all seven part here, with occasional comments where my perspective seems to add something of value.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/2/2008 12:07 PM
By SHARON COHEN
EDITOR’S NOTE — Called to arms from their civilian life, members of a National Guard unit say their goodbyes to their loved ones, not knowing that they are about to depart on the longest deployment of the Iraq war. The first of seven parts.
By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — In the end, Chad Malmberg put his framed Silver Star on the wall and stowed away his helmet, some old uniforms and the dusty combat boots he had worn in the Iraqi desert.
He was a hero, now, and proud of it. Malmberg had quickly entered his last semester of college, blending easily into the anonymity of campus life. Within months, he had his degree.
It took months, too, to break some habits. Such as hugging the center line when he drove and swerving whenever he saw anything on the road, fearing hidden bombs. And ticking off a check list — gun, ammo, food — every time he went outside.
He was home, he was safe, he was whole.
So many others could not say as much: John Kriesel, Josh Hanson, J.R. Salzman, Corey Rystad, Bryan McDonough … some came back with broken bodies, some came back to eulogies and grieving loved ones and final resting places.
But none of them — none of the 5,000 men and women of the 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard — came back unchanged by their 22-month deployment, and their sojourn into the cauldron of Iraq.
Their time at war won a commendation in Congress as “the longest continuous deployment of any United States ground combat military unit during Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
And for every man and woman who served, there was someone at home, hoping and waiting for their return.
There was the young wife who scoured the Internet each morning, searching for news stories about the area where her husband was based — trying to gauge the dangers. The little boys who eagerly checked e-mail every night for messages from their soldier-father.
There was the father who wondered how to break it to his soldier-wife that their baby girl had uttered her first words — and she had missed it. The mother who walked to work praying for her soldier-son’s safety — telling herself if she arrived without a phone call he was OK.
This was a war where families were sometimes just a mouse-click away from their soldiers, where a mother who had just given birth dispatched cell phone photos of the baby to her soldier-husband, where home front celebrations — graduations, birthdays, even weddings — were shared across the continents, via Web cams and video hookups.
But there also were moments in Iraq, some terrifying, some heartbreaking, that could not be shared with others far away.
The day a doctor pleaded on behalf of a wounded Iraqi boy, knowing his words could mean the difference between life and death for the child. The afternoon a husband grieved his loss by softly muttering his wife’s name on a bomb-scarred road. The day troops gathered to remember a buddy at a memorial service that closed with a somber roll call, the soldier’s name repeated three times to no reply.
There were many such experiences in nearly 500 days in Iraq.
Over that long haul, the soldiers drove 2.4 million convoy miles, conducted 5,200 patrols, discovered 462 improvised explosive devices, captured more than 400 suspected insurgents.
This is the story of a very long deployment of a very long war — of how members of the 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division lived and died in Iraq, how their families endured while they were gone, and how what happened in a far distant land still resonates today.
___
Malmberg’s mother, Teri Walen, didn’t want him to go to Iraq. She didn’t support the war, didn’t think her only son should be there. She tried to talk him out of it.
“Do you think war is a good thing?” she asked when he called one night.
“No,” he replied. “What do you think, I’m crazy?”
But Malmberg was stubborn and determined, and convinced his mother he had good reasons for going. Wiry and intense, a mixed martial arts buff and former Army welterweight boxer, Malmberg had eight years of military training — including a stint as a paratrooper at Fort Bragg, N.C. — but he had never served his country in combat. Now he had the chance.
On July 15, 2006, the official word came down: The 1st Brigade Combat Team — nicknamed the Red Bulls — would be deployed. Some 2,600 folks from Minnesota, bolstered by two Guard units from Iowa and Nebraska and troops from 33 other states, would put their lives on hold to take up arms.
These were not, for the most part, full-time soldiers. They were members of the National Guard, farmers and factory workers, salespeople and mechanics, doctors and students. Among them were fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, pool-playing buddies, former high school football rivals, classmates and neighbors.
Malmberg was just a semester shy of finishing college, but his degree would have to wait. He bought a $400,000 life insurance policy and named his sister, Jessica, as the beneficiary.
But Teri’s biggest worry really wasn’t that her son would die in Iraq.
Her fear was that he’d be disabled and need care the rest of his life — that he would be unable to pursue a childhood dream and become a police officer, like his father and uncle.
Death or disfigurement were not the things Chad feared; he was afraid only that he might fail the soldiers who depended upon him to lead an infantry squad.
And so he packed his gear and headed south, to Camp Shelby, Miss., where the 1st Brigade Combat Team holed up for six months in barracks that had been flooded by Hurricane Katrina.
There, amid downed trees and buildings that had lost their roofs, they trained, practiced their marksmanship, studied Iraqi culture and learned to work as a team.
As they edged closer to Iraq, some made big changes in their lives.
John Kriesel and his longtime partner, Katie, dashed down to City Hall in St. Paul, Minn., with their two sons, Elijah, 4, and Broden, 3, to wed.
Kriesel — the kind of guy who dressed up in his brother’s Army fatigues when he was just 10, the kind of guy who persisted in his relationship with Katie only when she confirmed she had voted for George W. Bush — was all pumped up to go to Iraq.
He asked Katie for permission. It’s not a fair question, she said — if she said no, he’d resent her, and if he said yes, she’d blame herself if anything happened to him.
“Will yo u regret it when you’re 30 if you don’t go?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
On a family vacation in Florida, Kriesel talked with his sons about the war. He was going to fight the bad guys, he said, in a faraway place called Iraq so everyone there can be free.
Are you going to die? his boys asked. No, he assured them.
Are you going to come back OK? they asked. Yes, he said, I’ll be fine.
Kriesel talked of death only once, with Katie.
Promise me one thing, he said: If I die, don’t go on TV and criticize the war, as the mother of one fallen soldier did, famously — “Don’t go Cindy Sheehan on me.” And don’t let my boots be used in one of those anti-war demonstrations.
The granddaughter of two World War II veterans, the sister of a soldier, Katie understands the military. You can depend on me, she told her husband.
J.R. Salzman and his fiancee, Josie, also decided to marry before he shipped off to Iraq; if something happened to him, Salzman wanted Josie to receive spousal benefits.
Salzman drew a four-day pass from Camp Shelby, and they eloped to New Orleans. The city was still recovering from Katrina; the courthouse wasn’t open, the phones weren’t working right, but Josie was undeterred. They married in a brief ceremony at a judge’s elegant home.
In Iraq, Salzman would be just another soldier. At home, he was a celebrity of sorts — the five-time world logrolling champion, a title that earned him appearances on ESPN, stunt work in a Steve Martin movie and fan mail from all over.
That was how he met Josie. One day she tuned in to ESPN’s “Great Outdoor Games” and there he was, brown-haired, muscular, confident, agile, rolling along. She dropped him an admiring e-mail. A date at a Steak ‘n Shake followed, along with the discovery they had common interests (including fishing) and small-town roots (he was from Wisconsin, she was from Michigan). Love blossomed.
When they said goodbye, Josie was just 19, and had been a married woman less than a month.
___
Dathan Gazelka was at Camp Shelby, along with his younger brother, Daniel. They left behind a proud father, and a nervous mom.
Dathan would be a team leader in Iraq. As a former Guard recruiter, practically every guy under his command would be someone he signed up. He’d played pool and shared beers with them, he knew their families, too. He felt a special sense of responsibility; they were going because of him. There was no way he’d stay behind.
He wasn’t crazy about leaving his wife, Mandy, and his family. Anyone who wasn’t scared about heading into a war, he thought, was either lying or crazy.
Dathan left behind for his wife two things: a flashlight and a shotgun, just in case she needed them for protection in the remote, wooded area where they live outside Bemidji, Minn.
Mandy may look delicate with her porcelain features; she’s anything but. She’s handy with a gun and has hunted deer, grouse and small game since she was 12. She also knows her way around the tool box: She can fix a hot water heater, replace a flat tire and do any task around the house.
She put on a brave face when she said goodbye to her husband in Mississippi. No tears, she told herself. It wasn’t until days later, when she was home alone, that she cried.
So many goodbyes, none of them easy.
___
Janelle Johnson signed up for the Guard as a teenager, but now she was a full-time Guard member and the mother of two little girls. Emily was not even a year old, and Elizabeth was 4. It was her duty to go, but she wondered: Would her girls forget her? And how would her husband, Chad, manage?
She prepared him as best she could. She created a spreadsheet of all their bills. He would have to write the checks now, take the girls to day care and the doctor, make them dinner, and tuck them in every night.
Her mind raced with questions: Would Chad know when to start using solid baby food for Emily? Would he remember all the appointments with the pediatrician? He hadn’t read all the baby books. She had. He didn’t have a mother’s instincts. How could he?
Janelle knew he would need support. She spread the word to her sister, her mother, the day care teacher: “Take care of my babies.”
She left her girls reminders, too. She videotaped herself holding her daughters in her lap and reading them stories, so Chad could play them when she was gone. She recorded herself playing with baby Emily, so she could see her mom’s face.
Chad works for an environmental drilling firm and he had already told his bosses he couldn’t travel anymore. He needed to be home every night.
Before she left for Iraq, the Johnsons took a vacation together in Florida. Emily was a year old, but her mother had missed nearly half her life while training in Mississippi.
She tried to get her baby to take her first steps, but Emily wasn’t ready.
And when Emily injured herself in a fall and Janelle tried to scoop her up and comfort her, the little girl screamed and looked at her as if her mother was a stranger.
That night, in bed, Janelle cried: Emily doesn’t remember me. Chad tried to reassure her.
A few days later, Janelle kissed her daughters goodbye. You won’t see me for a long time, she told Elizabeth, and with that she returned to Mississippi, her stomach aching with emptiness.
___
Col. David Elicerio, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, had visited Iraq in September 2005 to check out what lay in store for his troops.
A warrior with an authoritative voice and a ramrod posture befitting his 25 years in the military, Elicerio had been deployed with the unit before, in Bosnia.
But he knew this deployment would be different.
The heat, for one thing; a blistering 120-degree day was not unusual. And by comparison, Bosnia was friendly terrain. He did not expect an open-arms embrace in Iraq.
For two weeks, Elicerio rode on convoys. He consulted with the Texas National Guard commander he would replace.
And then, a soldier was killed.
Elicerio accompanied the brigade commander to the memorial, watching and listening to how he soothed his grieving soldiers. It was a helpful lesson.
In the months ahead, Elicerio would have to do the same thing, writing letters of condolence, offering words of comfort and rallying his troops to go on.
___
TO BE CONTINUED …
___
NOTE: The story of 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour in Iraq was reconstructed from scores of interviews with more than 20 soldiers and members of their families. Most quotations are as remembered by the speakers. In addition, the series draws upon numerous official documents, including after-action reports; videos of news conferences; correspondence provided by the families (including e-mails and letters); television coverage of the unit’s return; personal journals and blog postings.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/2/2008 12:07 PM
By SHARON COHEN
EDITOR’S NOTE — Called to arms from their civilian life, members of a National Guard unit say their goodbyes to their loved ones, not knowing that they are about to depart on the longest deployment of the Iraq war. The first of seven parts.
By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — In the end, Chad Malmberg put his framed Silver Star on the wall and stowed away his helmet, some old uniforms and the dusty combat boots he had worn in the Iraqi desert.
He was a hero, now, and proud of it. Malmberg had quickly entered his last semester of college, blending easily into the anonymity of campus life. Within months, he had his degree.
It took months, too, to break some habits. Such as hugging the center line when he drove and swerving whenever he saw anything on the road, fearing hidden bombs. And ticking off a check list — gun, ammo, food — every time he went outside.
He was home, he was safe, he was whole.
So many others could not say as much: John Kriesel, Josh Hanson, J.R. Salzman, Corey Rystad, Bryan McDonough … some came back with broken bodies, some came back to eulogies and grieving loved ones and final resting places.
But none of them — none of the 5,000 men and women of the 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard — came back unchanged by their 22-month deployment, and their sojourn into the cauldron of Iraq.
Their time at war won a commendation in Congress as “the longest continuous deployment of any United States ground combat military unit during Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
And for every man and woman who served, there was someone at home, hoping and waiting for their return.
There was the young wife who scoured the Internet each morning, searching for news stories about the area where her husband was based — trying to gauge the dangers. The little boys who eagerly checked e-mail every night for messages from their soldier-father.
There was the father who wondered how to break it to his soldier-wife that their baby girl had uttered her first words — and she had missed it. The mother who walked to work praying for her soldier-son’s safety — telling herself if she arrived without a phone call he was OK.
This was a war where families were sometimes just a mouse-click away from their soldiers, where a mother who had just given birth dispatched cell phone photos of the baby to her soldier-husband, where home front celebrations — graduations, birthdays, even weddings — were shared across the continents, via Web cams and video hookups.
But there also were moments in Iraq, some terrifying, some heartbreaking, that could not be shared with others far away.
The day a doctor pleaded on behalf of a wounded Iraqi boy, knowing his words could mean the difference between life and death for the child. The afternoon a husband grieved his loss by softly muttering his wife’s name on a bomb-scarred road. The day troops gathered to remember a buddy at a memorial service that closed with a somber roll call, the soldier’s name repeated three times to no reply.
There were many such experiences in nearly 500 days in Iraq.
Over that long haul, the soldiers drove 2.4 million convoy miles, conducted 5,200 patrols, discovered 462 improvised explosive devices, captured more than 400 suspected insurgents.
This is the story of a very long deployment of a very long war — of how members of the 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division lived and died in Iraq, how their families endured while they were gone, and how what happened in a far distant land still resonates today.
___
Malmberg’s mother, Teri Walen, didn’t want him to go to Iraq. She didn’t support the war, didn’t think her only son should be there. She tried to talk him out of it.
“Do you think war is a good thing?” she asked when he called one night.
“No,” he replied. “What do you think, I’m crazy?”
But Malmberg was stubborn and determined, and convinced his mother he had good reasons for going. Wiry and intense, a mixed martial arts buff and former Army welterweight boxer, Malmberg had eight years of military training — including a stint as a paratrooper at Fort Bragg, N.C. — but he had never served his country in combat. Now he had the chance.
On July 15, 2006, the official word came down: The 1st Brigade Combat Team — nicknamed the Red Bulls — would be deployed. Some 2,600 folks from Minnesota, bolstered by two Guard units from Iowa and Nebraska and troops from 33 other states, would put their lives on hold to take up arms.
These were not, for the most part, full-time soldiers. They were members of the National Guard, farmers and factory workers, salespeople and mechanics, doctors and students. Among them were fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, pool-playing buddies, former high school football rivals, classmates and neighbors.
Malmberg was just a semester shy of finishing college, but his degree would have to wait. He bought a $400,000 life insurance policy and named his sister, Jessica, as the beneficiary.
But Teri’s biggest worry really wasn’t that her son would die in Iraq.
Her fear was that he’d be disabled and need care the rest of his life — that he would be unable to pursue a childhood dream and become a police officer, like his father and uncle.
Death or disfigurement were not the things Chad feared; he was afraid only that he might fail the soldiers who depended upon him to lead an infantry squad.
And so he packed his gear and headed south, to Camp Shelby, Miss., where the 1st Brigade Combat Team holed up for six months in barracks that had been flooded by Hurricane Katrina.
There, amid downed trees and buildings that had lost their roofs, they trained, practiced their marksmanship, studied Iraqi culture and learned to work as a team.
As they edged closer to Iraq, some made big changes in their lives.
John Kriesel and his longtime partner, Katie, dashed down to City Hall in St. Paul, Minn., with their two sons, Elijah, 4, and Broden, 3, to wed.
Kriesel — the kind of guy who dressed up in his brother’s Army fatigues when he was just 10, the kind of guy who persisted in his relationship with Katie only when she confirmed she had voted for George W. Bush — was all pumped up to go to Iraq.
He asked Katie for permission. It’s not a fair question, she said — if she said no, he’d resent her, and if he said yes, she’d blame herself if anything happened to him.
“Will yo u regret it when you’re 30 if you don’t go?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
On a family vacation in Florida, Kriesel talked with his sons about the war. He was going to fight the bad guys, he said, in a faraway place called Iraq so everyone there can be free.
Are you going to die? his boys asked. No, he assured them.
Are you going to come back OK? they asked. Yes, he said, I’ll be fine.
Kriesel talked of death only once, with Katie.
Promise me one thing, he said: If I die, don’t go on TV and criticize the war, as the mother of one fallen soldier did, famously — “Don’t go Cindy Sheehan on me.” And don’t let my boots be used in one of those anti-war demonstrations.
The granddaughter of two World War II veterans, the sister of a soldier, Katie understands the military. You can depend on me, she told her husband.
J.R. Salzman and his fiancee, Josie, also decided to marry before he shipped off to Iraq; if something happened to him, Salzman wanted Josie to receive spousal benefits.
Salzman drew a four-day pass from Camp Shelby, and they eloped to New Orleans. The city was still recovering from Katrina; the courthouse wasn’t open, the phones weren’t working right, but Josie was undeterred. They married in a brief ceremony at a judge’s elegant home.
In Iraq, Salzman would be just another soldier. At home, he was a celebrity of sorts — the five-time world logrolling champion, a title that earned him appearances on ESPN, stunt work in a Steve Martin movie and fan mail from all over.
That was how he met Josie. One day she tuned in to ESPN’s “Great Outdoor Games” and there he was, brown-haired, muscular, confident, agile, rolling along. She dropped him an admiring e-mail. A date at a Steak ‘n Shake followed, along with the discovery they had common interests (including fishing) and small-town roots (he was from Wisconsin, she was from Michigan). Love blossomed.
When they said goodbye, Josie was just 19, and had been a married woman less than a month.
___
Dathan Gazelka was at Camp Shelby, along with his younger brother, Daniel. They left behind a proud father, and a nervous mom.
Dathan would be a team leader in Iraq. As a former Guard recruiter, practically every guy under his command would be someone he signed up. He’d played pool and shared beers with them, he knew their families, too. He felt a special sense of responsibility; they were going because of him. There was no way he’d stay behind.
He wasn’t crazy about leaving his wife, Mandy, and his family. Anyone who wasn’t scared about heading into a war, he thought, was either lying or crazy.
Dathan left behind for his wife two things: a flashlight and a shotgun, just in case she needed them for protection in the remote, wooded area where they live outside Bemidji, Minn.
Mandy may look delicate with her porcelain features; she’s anything but. She’s handy with a gun and has hunted deer, grouse and small game since she was 12. She also knows her way around the tool box: She can fix a hot water heater, replace a flat tire and do any task around the house.
She put on a brave face when she said goodbye to her husband in Mississippi. No tears, she told herself. It wasn’t until days later, when she was home alone, that she cried.
So many goodbyes, none of them easy.
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Janelle Johnson signed up for the Guard as a teenager, but now she was a full-time Guard member and the mother of two little girls. Emily was not even a year old, and Elizabeth was 4. It was her duty to go, but she wondered: Would her girls forget her? And how would her husband, Chad, manage?
She prepared him as best she could. She created a spreadsheet of all their bills. He would have to write the checks now, take the girls to day care and the doctor, make them dinner, and tuck them in every night.
Her mind raced with questions: Would Chad know when to start using solid baby food for Emily? Would he remember all the appointments with the pediatrician? He hadn’t read all the baby books. She had. He didn’t have a mother’s instincts. How could he?
Janelle knew he would need support. She spread the word to her sister, her mother, the day care teacher: “Take care of my babies.”
She left her girls reminders, too. She videotaped herself holding her daughters in her lap and reading them stories, so Chad could play them when she was gone. She recorded herself playing with baby Emily, so she could see her mom’s face.
Chad works for an environmental drilling firm and he had already told his bosses he couldn’t travel anymore. He needed to be home every night.
Before she left for Iraq, the Johnsons took a vacation together in Florida. Emily was a year old, but her mother had missed nearly half her life while training in Mississippi.
She tried to get her baby to take her first steps, but Emily wasn’t ready.
And when Emily injured herself in a fall and Janelle tried to scoop her up and comfort her, the little girl screamed and looked at her as if her mother was a stranger.
That night, in bed, Janelle cried: Emily doesn’t remember me. Chad tried to reassure her.
A few days later, Janelle kissed her daughters goodbye. You won’t see me for a long time, she told Elizabeth, and with that she returned to Mississippi, her stomach aching with emptiness.
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Col. David Elicerio, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, had visited Iraq in September 2005 to check out what lay in store for his troops.
A warrior with an authoritative voice and a ramrod posture befitting his 25 years in the military, Elicerio had been deployed with the unit before, in Bosnia.
But he knew this deployment would be different.
The heat, for one thing; a blistering 120-degree day was not unusual. And by comparison, Bosnia was friendly terrain. He did not expect an open-arms embrace in Iraq.
For two weeks, Elicerio rode on convoys. He consulted with the Texas National Guard commander he would replace.
And then, a soldier was killed.
Elicerio accompanied the brigade commander to the memorial, watching and listening to how he soothed his grieving soldiers. It was a helpful lesson.
In the months ahead, Elicerio would have to do the same thing, writing letters of condolence, offering words of comfort and rallying his troops to go on.
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TO BE CONTINUED …
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NOTE: The story of 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour in Iraq was reconstructed from scores of interviews with more than 20 soldiers and members of their families. Most quotations are as remembered by the speakers. In addition, the series draws upon numerous official documents, including after-action reports; videos of news conferences; correspondence provided by the families (including e-mails and letters); television coverage of the unit’s return; personal journals and blog postings.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.