thedrifter
05-12-06, 06:54 AM
May 12, 2006
The News at the Base Was Bad, With More Likely to Follow
By JOHN KIFNER
FORT DRUM, N.Y., May 11 — When word came last Friday that a big Chinook helicopter had tumbled off a knife-edge ridgeline in the mountains of Afghanistan, killing 10 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, everybody at this sprawling base feared the worst for their loved ones.
Maj. Thomas T. Sutton, as Rear Detachment Commander, the officer left behind to care for the soldiers' families, was one of the few who knew just how close to home the news would strike. From the helicopter's manifest, he was certain that among the dead was one of the Third Brigade's most promising leaders, his boss, neighbor and friend, Lt. Col. Joseph J. Fenty Jr.
But by the strict rules of the Army, he could not tell anyone — most important, not Colonel Fenty's wife, Kristin, who had given birth to their daughter, Lauren, only last month — until the bodies were positively identified. The process took nearly two days — two days in which Major Sutton had to keep his terrible news a secret.
"This was a huge burden for me," he said. "This was very unusual, because in this case the news was out, but no one has the details."
Death in the Army comes with its own strictly honored rules and rituals. And at this base near the Canadian border, the latest round of death has provided a window into the close-knit, mutually supportive world of today's all-volunteer military, a world unknown to most Americans even though hundreds of thousands have cycled through Iraq and Afghanistan, many for second or third tours.
In recent years, the Army has organized what it calls Family Readiness Groups, a support structure for families that mirrors the military organization, with the wives of the commanders at, for example, company and battalion level heading a committee of those units' soldiers' wives. Much of their work involves coping with the Army's forms and regulations on pay, housing and other matters, as well as providing a social network, particularly important when the soldiers are deployed.
But their duties also include helping the base cope with death, of which there has been plenty in recent years: the division has had 38 soldiers from Fort Drum killed in Iraq and now 21 in Afghanistan; 11 soldiers died in a helicopter crash in training here on March 11, 2003.
And more bad news is likely to come. As the Army's most-deployed division, the 10th Mountain has its First Brigade in Iraq and its Third Brigade in Afghanistan, a total of 10,494 troops. Its Second Brigade is just back from training in California and is heading for Iraq this summer.
"No one likes to talk about death," Major Sutton observed. But at meetings with the families in December, before the Third Brigade left, there was frank talk of the procedures followed for a fatality — including a listing of close friends — along with discussions of military paperwork, winter driving and a forthcoming dance.
For Major Sutton, a boyish-looking Rutgers graduate and his wife, Amy, who supervises the F.R.G.'s, as the support groups are known in Army style, it was time to put those painful procedures into effect.
"I do a lot of the 'green-suit' stuff," he likes to say, "but she has the skill sets to deal with the families."
News of the helicopter crash was on cable television channels early Saturday morning.
"All the calls started coming in," Major Sutton recalled. "Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, literally from all over the world. Hour by hour, people were calling back" for more information.
By Saturday evening, Major Sutton had notification teams in dress- green uniforms standing by in a number of locations. But, in the steep terrain where the helicopter crashed, it was not until Sunday morning that the last two bodies were recovered and identified, and the ordered, formal process could go forward.
The helicopter had fallen around 8 p.m., Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, the division's spokesman, said by telephone from Afghanistan. With six crew members aboard, it was picking up a group of nine soldiers operating an observation post on the ridge in Kunar Province as part of Operation Mountain Lion, which is aimed at driving the Taliban out of the northeastern border region.
Colonel Fenty, commander of the Third Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, and three of his troopers had just boarded the Chinook when it tipped and plunged into the ravine, exploding into fire and burning beyond all recognition. The Army is investigating the cause but says no enemy fire was involved.
"It was steep and rugged terrain, 60-degree drops to the left and the right, Colonel Fitzpatrick said. "It was completely catastrophic. It took two days to complete the arduous task of recovering the bodies."
As darkness fell, the remaining soldiers and nine more from a nearby ridge secured the area, Colonel Fitzpatrick said, and the next day a recovery team, including marines and an Air Force parachute-medical-rescue unit, was assembled to bring the bodies out by rappelling down cliffs and climbing back up.
The hard task of notifying Colonel Fenty's wife fell to Lt. Col. Michael Howard, an officer of equal rank and a close friend of the family, who strode to her door in the dress green uniform the wives dread. "I heard the scream," recalled Major Sutton, who was standing nearby. "The crying, the wailing. 'No, why?' Then a total breakdown."
Colonel Howard was reluctant to speak of his role, but said "before I left the home, there were five women there. As soon as we passed the news they were there fast."
Among the women were the three that Mrs. Fenty had listed on her readiness form as her closest friends: Christina Cavoli, whose husband commands an infantry battalion; Andrea Bushy, whose husband is an artillery commander; and Gretchen Timmons, whose husband was Colonel Fenty's executive officer, or No. 2. Amy Sutton was there, too. Mrs. Fenty had headed the squadron's F.R.G.; now it was she who needed support.
They all live close together in two-story grayish frame houses on the base, in a section of winding streets set aside for majors and lieutenant colonels, and they socialize often — dinner parties, walking dogs, taking children to the school bus. With the soldiers deployed, it looks like a neighborhood of women and children.
"Forward, it's brothers-in-arms," Major Sutton said. "That's who you fight for. It's the same thing here. It's sisters, that's who will come to the rescue. They'll set up camp in her house and do her chores and protect her."
Military families move frequently but bond quickly, Ms. Cavoli said, adding that the support network is "a system that's familiar, that they can plug into very readily. Typically, we don't have serious bad news to deal with."
Colonel Fenty had built the cavalry squadron — a new formation in an Army reorganization that relies on integrated brigade combat teams — from scratch, officers here said. With about 500 troops, it is smaller than an infantry battalion of around 800 and is designed primarily for reconnaissance. The troops liken it to scouts in the old West and have adopted black Stetsons and spurs.
"We're the eyes and ears of the brigade," said Capt. Al Goetz, the rear detachment commander. "Whether you're on a horse or a donkey, a Humvee or a Bradley, the job hasn't really changed. We're like dragoons. In reality, we're really dismounting a lot in Afghanistan. We're not afraid to get off those vehicles."
Captain Goetz was finishing writing a eulogy on Thursday morning for a midday chapel ceremony honoring Colonel Fenty and the three others from 3-71 Cavalry. Closed to outsiders, it was being videotaped for Lauren Fenty to see when she is old enough.
Colonel Fenty seemed, at least at first, a very private man, Captain Goetz said. But "he was very concerned about his families," he said.
Ellie
The News at the Base Was Bad, With More Likely to Follow
By JOHN KIFNER
FORT DRUM, N.Y., May 11 — When word came last Friday that a big Chinook helicopter had tumbled off a knife-edge ridgeline in the mountains of Afghanistan, killing 10 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, everybody at this sprawling base feared the worst for their loved ones.
Maj. Thomas T. Sutton, as Rear Detachment Commander, the officer left behind to care for the soldiers' families, was one of the few who knew just how close to home the news would strike. From the helicopter's manifest, he was certain that among the dead was one of the Third Brigade's most promising leaders, his boss, neighbor and friend, Lt. Col. Joseph J. Fenty Jr.
But by the strict rules of the Army, he could not tell anyone — most important, not Colonel Fenty's wife, Kristin, who had given birth to their daughter, Lauren, only last month — until the bodies were positively identified. The process took nearly two days — two days in which Major Sutton had to keep his terrible news a secret.
"This was a huge burden for me," he said. "This was very unusual, because in this case the news was out, but no one has the details."
Death in the Army comes with its own strictly honored rules and rituals. And at this base near the Canadian border, the latest round of death has provided a window into the close-knit, mutually supportive world of today's all-volunteer military, a world unknown to most Americans even though hundreds of thousands have cycled through Iraq and Afghanistan, many for second or third tours.
In recent years, the Army has organized what it calls Family Readiness Groups, a support structure for families that mirrors the military organization, with the wives of the commanders at, for example, company and battalion level heading a committee of those units' soldiers' wives. Much of their work involves coping with the Army's forms and regulations on pay, housing and other matters, as well as providing a social network, particularly important when the soldiers are deployed.
But their duties also include helping the base cope with death, of which there has been plenty in recent years: the division has had 38 soldiers from Fort Drum killed in Iraq and now 21 in Afghanistan; 11 soldiers died in a helicopter crash in training here on March 11, 2003.
And more bad news is likely to come. As the Army's most-deployed division, the 10th Mountain has its First Brigade in Iraq and its Third Brigade in Afghanistan, a total of 10,494 troops. Its Second Brigade is just back from training in California and is heading for Iraq this summer.
"No one likes to talk about death," Major Sutton observed. But at meetings with the families in December, before the Third Brigade left, there was frank talk of the procedures followed for a fatality — including a listing of close friends — along with discussions of military paperwork, winter driving and a forthcoming dance.
For Major Sutton, a boyish-looking Rutgers graduate and his wife, Amy, who supervises the F.R.G.'s, as the support groups are known in Army style, it was time to put those painful procedures into effect.
"I do a lot of the 'green-suit' stuff," he likes to say, "but she has the skill sets to deal with the families."
News of the helicopter crash was on cable television channels early Saturday morning.
"All the calls started coming in," Major Sutton recalled. "Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, literally from all over the world. Hour by hour, people were calling back" for more information.
By Saturday evening, Major Sutton had notification teams in dress- green uniforms standing by in a number of locations. But, in the steep terrain where the helicopter crashed, it was not until Sunday morning that the last two bodies were recovered and identified, and the ordered, formal process could go forward.
The helicopter had fallen around 8 p.m., Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, the division's spokesman, said by telephone from Afghanistan. With six crew members aboard, it was picking up a group of nine soldiers operating an observation post on the ridge in Kunar Province as part of Operation Mountain Lion, which is aimed at driving the Taliban out of the northeastern border region.
Colonel Fenty, commander of the Third Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, and three of his troopers had just boarded the Chinook when it tipped and plunged into the ravine, exploding into fire and burning beyond all recognition. The Army is investigating the cause but says no enemy fire was involved.
"It was steep and rugged terrain, 60-degree drops to the left and the right, Colonel Fitzpatrick said. "It was completely catastrophic. It took two days to complete the arduous task of recovering the bodies."
As darkness fell, the remaining soldiers and nine more from a nearby ridge secured the area, Colonel Fitzpatrick said, and the next day a recovery team, including marines and an Air Force parachute-medical-rescue unit, was assembled to bring the bodies out by rappelling down cliffs and climbing back up.
The hard task of notifying Colonel Fenty's wife fell to Lt. Col. Michael Howard, an officer of equal rank and a close friend of the family, who strode to her door in the dress green uniform the wives dread. "I heard the scream," recalled Major Sutton, who was standing nearby. "The crying, the wailing. 'No, why?' Then a total breakdown."
Colonel Howard was reluctant to speak of his role, but said "before I left the home, there were five women there. As soon as we passed the news they were there fast."
Among the women were the three that Mrs. Fenty had listed on her readiness form as her closest friends: Christina Cavoli, whose husband commands an infantry battalion; Andrea Bushy, whose husband is an artillery commander; and Gretchen Timmons, whose husband was Colonel Fenty's executive officer, or No. 2. Amy Sutton was there, too. Mrs. Fenty had headed the squadron's F.R.G.; now it was she who needed support.
They all live close together in two-story grayish frame houses on the base, in a section of winding streets set aside for majors and lieutenant colonels, and they socialize often — dinner parties, walking dogs, taking children to the school bus. With the soldiers deployed, it looks like a neighborhood of women and children.
"Forward, it's brothers-in-arms," Major Sutton said. "That's who you fight for. It's the same thing here. It's sisters, that's who will come to the rescue. They'll set up camp in her house and do her chores and protect her."
Military families move frequently but bond quickly, Ms. Cavoli said, adding that the support network is "a system that's familiar, that they can plug into very readily. Typically, we don't have serious bad news to deal with."
Colonel Fenty had built the cavalry squadron — a new formation in an Army reorganization that relies on integrated brigade combat teams — from scratch, officers here said. With about 500 troops, it is smaller than an infantry battalion of around 800 and is designed primarily for reconnaissance. The troops liken it to scouts in the old West and have adopted black Stetsons and spurs.
"We're the eyes and ears of the brigade," said Capt. Al Goetz, the rear detachment commander. "Whether you're on a horse or a donkey, a Humvee or a Bradley, the job hasn't really changed. We're like dragoons. In reality, we're really dismounting a lot in Afghanistan. We're not afraid to get off those vehicles."
Captain Goetz was finishing writing a eulogy on Thursday morning for a midday chapel ceremony honoring Colonel Fenty and the three others from 3-71 Cavalry. Closed to outsiders, it was being videotaped for Lauren Fenty to see when she is old enough.
Colonel Fenty seemed, at least at first, a very private man, Captain Goetz said. But "he was very concerned about his families," he said.
Ellie