The story of seven young men

Tom Brokaw • Profile

GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK - For more than a century, young men and now women from this bucolic corner of the Northeast have trained as part-time soldiers. The National Guardsmen were called "weekend warriors" — the standby troops of America’s military forces. But in the Glens Falls armory, and thousands more like it across the country, the role of the Guard changed dramatically when the United States went to war against Iraq.

Forty percent of the American troops on the ground in Iraq are from the Guard. They are weekend warriors no more.

"To War and Back" is the story of seven young men — buddies — who joined the National Guard never thinking they’d go to war. But they did, and theirs is a story of loss, honor, friendship and young lives changed forever.

(Home video) Nathan Brown: Sara, I love you and I always will. And if I don’t come back from this, you know I loved you. And I care about you so much. You mean everything to me Sara.

Nathan Brown never expected to be recording a “goodbye video” in the middle of the Iraqi desert, but then Nathan Brown never expected to find himself in the middle of the war.

Every day in Iraq was dangerous, so different from back home in upstate New York, in the peaceful surroundings of Glens Falls. Nathan wasn’t alone, he arrived in Iraq with six buddies from the old neighborhood.

Tim Haag, a talented artist, went to high school with Nathan. Chad Byrne was a gifted athlete. Andy Flint signed on as a platoon medic. Ken Comstock was known for his love of the military.  Pete Hull was an accomplished singer and Rob Hemsing an exceptional guitarist.

The life they knew revolved around Glens Falls, a town so “all-American,” it was dubbed “Hometown U.S.A.” by Look magazine during World War II.  

But in recent years, Glens Falls has become a fading factory and mill town.  For working class kids like Nathan and his friends, the National Guard was an option for college money. 

When they joined, it was a safe bet: No one from their infantry division had been sent to battle since World War II.

But times had changed, and they were in the thick of it.

Of the seven who left Glens Falls together, only six would make it back. Three would be seriously wounded. All of them would be changed forever. 

'That wouldn't happen to us'
Before going overseas, the battalion trained stateside for four months. They completed their training in February 2004. The war in Iraq was just short of a year old. The insurgency was growing every day.

Tom Brokaw, NBC News: When you saw on the news about the IEDs and the insurgencies attacking convoys and so on, what did you think?

Rob Hemsing: You’re thinking, “Okay. In a couple weeks, that’s going to be me driving through that. How am I going to be different? How can I be the one to save, the guys in my truck and myself?”

Brokaw:  Did it really raise the intensity for you about what you’re involved in now?

Andy Flint: I was kind of under the assumption, “Oh, that wouldn’t happen to us you know.”  We’re just a group of friends. We’re just going over there and take care of business for a year, you know.  We’re National Guard so we’re not going to be in the mix of all the fighting.

In mid-February 2004, they gathered at the armory in Glens Falls to say good-bye to their families. They recorded their farewell and later, much of their time in Iraq with videos and photos.

Reporter Thom Randall from the local paper, the Post-Star, covered the story the day the soldiers left. He remembers interviewing Nathan Brown.

Thom Randall, local reporter:  He was bouncing on his toes and full of enthusiasm about going over and serving and to see something he’d never seen before in his life.

Brokaw:  Did he have any sense of the peril that he was entering into?  Or was it just a big adventure for him?

Randall: It seemed like a sense of adventure, but you know there was kind of a nervous edge to it.

Nathan said goodbye to his fiancée Sara and got on the bus. The Nighthawk platoon was on its way. They left behind families, girlfriends, favorite cars, and innocent nights drinking beer for a faraway war zone.

But when Nathan called home one last time before leaving the country, his mother Kathy Brown detected traces of fear in her son.

Kathy Brown, Nathan Brown’s mother:  I said, “What’s bothering you Nate?”  He goes, “Mom, I never killed a man, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”  You know, he was so worried about somebody else’s life over his own.

When the soldiers arrived in Iraq in March 2004, it had been one year since the war began.  Their first impression was one of unsettling calm.

Brokaw:  When did you begin to have a sense though that you’re in a dangerous place?

Ken Comstock: Our first mission we went out and we heard shots being fired and a "boom."

Flint:  We ran behind our truck and there’s bullets skipping near our legs.  We jump in and the windshield gets hit with like five rounds. And everybody at that point knew that we’re going to be faced with the enemy, and we were going to have to face them back.

Because they had performed well during training, their company was handpicked to be attached to a regular army brigade operating in Samarra, a city 60 miles northwest of Baghdad. The friends now were in hostile territory, but they were still together.

Brokaw:  Everybody I’ve ever talked to who’s gone through combat talks about the importance of your buddies — of the personal relationships.  They say you end up not fighting for your country, you end up fighting for your best friends... to try to keep them alive.  Is that how you felt?

Comstock: Yeah, because, when you get sent to a place like Iraq or Afghanistan and bullets start flying and things start blowing up all around you, then you realize that you’re 25,000 miles away from, you know, any blood relative that you have. The closest family you have are your buddies within the platoon and the company.  

All seven soldiers — Rob, Pete, Tim, Chad, Ken, Andy and Nathan — knew they were part of that family, knew they’d watch each other’s backs.

But in this case they were even more than battle buddies — their close friendships went back years, forged on ball fields, around pool tables, and over late-night video game duels. Still, in the unpredictable world they’d been thrown into there was no guarantee that they could always save each other. 

Perhaps that’s why Nathan Brown made his goodbye tape to his fiancée Sara.

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