And I’m helping people through their darkest days and their darkest hours, when they have no idea what their next step is. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell them. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but we’ll all get through this together, one day at a time, one task at a time.” It’s so fulfilling. Humbling. I feel so, so grateful.
NICOLE KRUSE
Nicole Kruse grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was a junior in high school on September 11, 2001. Seeing what happened made her want to be a part of something that was bigger than herself. The following year, when she turned seventeen, Nicole joined the Minnesota National Guard. She is now a captain in the Army and a Black Hawk pilot.
My husband and I get married on my twentieth birthday.
He’s active-duty, with the 82nd. When he gets out, in 2006, he moves to Minnesota, and I get pregnant. I’m in my junior year of college.
One day after class, my professor of military science takes me aside and says, “Nicole, do you want to get out? Because you can.”
“No, sir,” I say, and mean it. I’ve always wanted to fly Army helicopters, and I’m committed to seeing it through. “This is what I want to do—this is my calling—and if you guys can work with me, my husband and I will figure out arrangements for our child so I can stick with this.”
It’s true. I really do want to stick with this. But I’m also trying to be realistic about my options. So I start thinking about corporate law. Tuition won’t be a problem. The G.I. Bill will pay 80 percent, and because I’m half Native American, the money that comes in from the reservation I’m a part of will cover the rest.
I take the LSAT while I’m pregnant. I’m thinking about putting in an educational delay and going to law school when the professor of military science, a man who is an aviator and getting ready to retire, says to me, “You can be a lawyer at any point in your life, Nicole, but when will you ever again have a chance to fly Army helicopters?”
That hits a nerve. It makes me think of my mother. She always encouraged me to reach for the stars. Everything that I ever wanted to do in my life—none of it ever seemed impossible for me, no matter the circumstances. I truly believe anyone can make anything happen in their lives if they truly desire it—if they’re willing to go the distance, do whatever it takes to get the job done. You have to be 100 percent committed.
“I think you’re right, sir. Let me try for Aviation branch.”
After I give birth to my son, Chastan, in the summer of 2007, I begin to pursue my dream.
It’s not easy. Thank God for my family. We’re super close, and they’ve always been my support system.
My mom works nights, so I bring Chastan to her house early in the morning before I have PT. I’m part of a Ranger Challenge group, and I have to get back into shape. I go back to school when Chastan is only a few weeks old.
It’s ambitious wanting to accomplish all these goals as a new mother, but I know it will bring my son a better life than the one I had growing up. My mom raised me, and while she provided me with everything she could, I saw how much she struggled. Knowing that makes me even more determined to give my son the best life possible—even if that means also working up to thirty-six hours every week so I can get full health care.
But still, it’s a lot. I’m getting very little sleep, so I’m exhausted pretty much all the time. But I know I’m also building up the sort of resiliency I’ll need to get through some of the rougher times that I know are coming—like advanced camp. I missed it because of the pregnancy.
I end up doing advanced camp on the back end after college graduation, in May of 2008. That September, I find out I got Aviation.
I’m ecstatic.
In April of 2009, I go to flight school with my husband and son. It’s rough. This is the first time I’m moving away from my family and not coming back. On top of that, my husband and I are having a lot of marital problems. We decide to use my time at SERE—the Army’s survival, evasion, resistance, and escape school, which trains soldiers in how to survive in isolation or captivity—to give ourselves some space.
When I return from SERE, it’s clear that my husband and I are not on the same path. We decide to get a divorce. He decides to move to Samoa to gather himself while he lives with his mother.
I stay at Fort Rucker, in Alabama, with my young son. I have to figure out how to watch and care for him while going to flight school.
Fortunately, there’s day care, and the community of people and spouses at Fort Rucker help watch Chastan when I can’t. Then, when it’s time for me to be a platoon leader and move to my first duty station in Hawaii, I’m fortunate to have one of my aunts move in with me. She’s someone I can rely on and trust, and when I become a company commander at Fort Hood, she moves with me and helps out with Chastan. My son is very comfortable with her, which is a good thing because I’ve just been told I’m going to deploy, in January of 2012, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
I’ll be gone for most of the year.
I’m twenty-five years old and I have no idea what it means to go to war.
I’m scared.
And on top of that, I’m leaving my son. The thought of being away from him for so long is crushing enough. Thinking about all these issues is overwhelming. Suffocating.
The soldiers I’m going with had all just deployed together to Iraq. They act confident, and their confidence gives me confidence of my own. Our mindset is: we’re a family. We’re going into this as a family. We’re going to get through this together.
Our command aviation company is in Kandahar. Our assault battalion has three companies of Black Hawks: air assault, maintenance, and forward support. I’m with air assault, which means I’m responsible for bringing the ground force to the objective and then picking them up.
My first missions involve working with the Australian Special Forces. Our aircraft gets shot at. When we come back after an infiltration and inspect our aircraft, some of them have bullet holes. That’s when the reality of what’s going on here sinks in.
But I don’t feel afraid when I’m in the air—on the ground, yes, but not in the air. One night I’m in the top bunk and I wake up to a siren going off. The base, I’m told, is receiving indirect fire. As I jump out of bed, I hit my head on the ceiling, and the fear sets in. When I’m in the air, it’s like I’m in this other world where I feel like I’m in control. Not invulnerable or unstoppable, but in control of my area.
In April, we lose John, one of our crew chiefs—and it’s due to pilot error involving weather, not enemy fire. That’s when it sinks in that death is real. Someone I knew well and cared about is dead, and I’m not prepared for it.
How am I going to show my emotions? I’m a leader. I need to be brave for my soldiers, make sure they’re all taken care of, and it’s really hard to take care of them while also taking care of myself.
“We’re going to do every mission for John,” I tell them. “We’re going to go forward, and we’re going to make John’s life count. His sacrifice.”
John’s death brings us closer, but I struggle with it for a long time because it’s my fault he died. I recommended him for that particular mission. If I hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been there that day, and he’d still be alive.
When I Skype back home with my family and my son, I try to act like everything is okay because I don’t want them to worry. Even to this day, they don’t know what happened during my yearlong deployment. I don’t tell them about my valor award or my combat action badge or my Air Medal. I think they realize the nature of my profession, but the things I’ve seen and experienced, I want to keep that separate from my family. I don’t want to ever make them worry.
MIKE ERGO
The oldest of four, Mike Ergo grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Walnut Creek hearing his grandfather’s stories about the Marine Corps in World War II. An evangelical Christian from an early age, Mike always liked serving others. He went to Mexico to help build houses and one summer traveled to
Slovakia to build a church. Mike served in the Marine Corps from 2001 to 2005. His MOS was 0311 Infantry, basic rifleman.
I stand up in front of the military board and say, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
They’re shocked. I understand why.
Going through boot camp, when I was asked by drill sergeants, instructors, and others what my MOS—my military occupational specialty, or career—was going to be, I told them I had chosen musician because I played saxophone and, after having auditioned for the Marine Corps band, had been accepted. I got laughed at the entire time. During boot camp, I had thought about switching from musician to infantryman. I loved weapons training and being in the field and training with a bunch of other soon-to-be grunts. I felt like I was in the real military.
I clear my throat, nervous. I’m eighteen, and everyone is staring at me.
“I’d rather be in the infantry,” I tell the board.
Silence. I know what they’re thinking: People who join the school of music want to stay here. It’s easy physically and the people here are nice to you and really fun to be around. And they are. They truly are fun, nice people. But I want to go to war and be a part of something epic.
“Okay,” says one of the board members. “Okay, yeah, we can do that for you, no problem.”
Now I have to go back to the School of Infantry for a second time—only this time I’m going to do the actual infantry training. It’s the summer of 2002.
I know they’re going to push me far beyond my comfort zone and my perceived abilities. I know I’ll have to earn respect. I know I can’t rely on my dad’s career as a partner in a law firm to give me a job. I can’t rely on nepotism or favors from anyone. I’ll have to earn everything myself, and I can’t wait for it to begin.
The first time I deploy, in March of 2003, I’m part of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division. The plan is to go through Turkey’s airspace, land in Turkey, and then convoy down to Iraq.
I’ve let go of being scared. Whatever the heck is going to happen is going to happen. I’ll just deal with it.
Turkey decides it doesn’t want us coming through to go into Iraq, so we end up floating around in the Mediterranean and watching the initial invasion on TV. We missed Afghanistan and now we feel like complete losers because we’ve missed Iraq.
Not that the war is going to last that long. We assume this one, like the Gulf War, is going to be over in four days.
We’re wrong.
When I deploy again, in June of 2004, the insurgency has started to take off, and IEDs are the insurgency’s signature weapon. We fly into Al Asad Airbase in western Iraq’s Al Anbar Province and immediately get to work patrolling the deserts and some of the small towns. We get into a few small engagements, but nothing major.
The war gets real for me the following month.
My best friend, a fellow ginger, is moved over to a scout sniper platoon. On July 20, a day and a half later, after I had dinner with him in the chow hall, he’s killed by an IED.
He can’t be dead. I just saw him. A day and a half ago, we were joking around like we always did, and talking about what we were going to do when we got back home, and now he’s dead? The shock turns to anger—what are we going to do to find the people responsible?—and then, eventually, gives way to guilt about my inability to stop my best friend from being killed.
The sobering reality of warfare hits me: this isn’t a game. People get hurt and people get killed.
I don’t have time to dwell on these feelings, let alone process them. I’m a twenty-one-year-old corporal. I have to go about my job, doing security patrols and meet and greets with local farmers out along the Euphrates River. Then I’m told we’re heading down to Fallujah, to the base camp right outside the city, to start training for a big, massive invasion.
Al-Qaeda and all kinds of foreign fighters from all over the Muslim world have been flooding into Fallujah since April, when the insurgents, after ambushing a convoy containing four US private contractors from Blackwater, dragged the American bodies through the streets. The insurgents have been busy fortifying the city, getting ready for us to attack.
We invade the city on November 8. I have no idea I’m about to be a part of the largest urban combat battle the US has engaged in since Hue City in Vietnam.
RPGs fly over my head and explode against buildings. Smoke is pouring out of mosques, and insurgent fighters and squads are dashing across the street and making their way to the area my team has secured, the place in the middle of the city known as the mayor’s complex.
In the midst of all the fighting, my team and I find ourselves totally exposed on the northwest corner of the mayor’s complex. The rest of our company is situated on surrounding buildings, with some pretty good cover, but here we are on the ground. Did our company forget about us? Did they—
Women wearing hijabs and young girls appear right in front of us. Some are holding a white flag, the signal that they’re civilians. The rules of engagement state that if they’re waving a white flag, they’re to come to us, and we’ll get them out of harm’s way.
My thirty-day crash course in Arabic taught me some basic phrases. I tell them to come to us. When they start walking, I see young men standing behind them. That’s when I figure out that they’re using these women and children as human shields.
Our rules of engagement are clear: if they don’t come to us and surrender, we can open fire.
I turn to my men, my decision absolute. “Do not open fire. I repeat, do not shoot them.”
Later that day, I find out one of our lieutenants got sniped through the side of his body armor, bled out, and died. I’ll never know if one of the bad guys I let pass was responsible for it, but I regret my earlier decision of not engaging the enemy.
My idea of right and wrong is thrown into question. I’m also unsure of my grasp on being an effective infantry team leader.
Think about it like baseball, I tell myself. Instead of being up at the plate and saying, “Okay, don’t strike out, don’t strike out,” say instead, “Let’s try to get a hit. Let’s just focus on being here. Whatever comes, comes.”
We spend the next six days kicking down doors and clearing houses. We get shot at and we shoot back. Along the way, we get into engagements in the streets, and we shoot the enemy. Then the oddest, creepiest thing happens: they get hit by three or four rounds, jerk back, and then get up and run and scale a wall.
It’s like we’re shooting zombies.
The bad guys, we come to find out, are injecting themselves with some kind of stimulant that helps them keep going even when they get hit.
We do sector clearing all the way south. Then we’re told to go back to the buildings we cleared and basically do mop-up duty, try to find the remaining insurgents who are playing cat and mouse with us.
Our platoon splits up to do the clearings. One of my junior Marines, who was off taking a leak, runs over to me and says, “Corporal, I saw these guys hiding behind a building. Then I saw them jump in it.”
“Did you shoot ’em?”
“No, I came to get you.” He gives me the location. The building is near where my platoon is currently located.
I take a makeshift team of four men, including myself: my point man, a guy from Grass Valley, California; the Goose, a combat engineer; and a guy carrying a light machine gun called the squad automatic weapon, or SAW. We hop over a wall, onto a street that’s north of my platoon. I see the bad guys—there’s four of them.
And they’re moving to position themselves to ambush my platoon.
We start clearing the group of buildings. The first one is clear. Same with the second and third. They’re empty of people.
There’s one building left. They have to be in there.
We’ve just opened the back door to a courtyard when my point man says, “Shit.”
“What?”
“I just realized there’s a very small bathroom I haven’t cleared.” With his chin, he nods up the stairs.
We go back inside. He heads up the cement steps. I trail him, my SAW gunner and the Goose behind me.
My point man kicks open the door.
Starts yelling and shooting.
And the bad guys inside return fire.
Then two guys shoot at us from a room across the hallway. We start shooting back. The place fills with gun smoke. The Goose, still behind me, gets shot in the helmet. Underneath all the shooting, I hear him yell and fall down.
It’s complete chaos.
It brings to mind something my lieutenant told me: When it comes to combat, you need to embrace the chaos because things are going to fall apart, and you need to be able to adapt.
But we’re pinned down—my point man and I are pushing up against each other. There’s no place to go.
They throw a grenade.
This is the end.
I don’t give up fighting, but I know I’m going to die. I don’t have any urge to call out to God for help or to beg for my life. I don’t pray. If this is how I go out, then I’m going out with my friends, these brothers I trust and love. This is the way to go out.
I surrender to it.
In that moment, I can feel my entire body. I can feel every single cell, even the hairs growing out of my skin. I can feel the air rushing into my lungs. And then I have this weird experience where I feel the world around me dissolve. I’m now in this timeless, peaceful place where I’m guessing my consciousness expands, taking me out of this building, away from the men shooting at us.
Right here, in this eternal moment, I don’t have any worries. I know everything is going to be all right, and I’m at complete peace.
Somehow we manage to take these guys down. I survive, with a little cut on my neck from when the grenade exploded.
We stay in Fallujah for a little bit, living in the city and in other people’s houses. Then we’re sent to the Abu Ghraib prison and live there for a stretch while doing security patrols in the area. When I finally get back to the barracks, I go seek out two guys who went with me to the infantry school. We’ve become very good friends.
Walk in My Combat Boots Page 27