The story of seven young men

By early March, 2005, the soldiers from the Nighthawk platoon were all back in the Glens Falls area, even those who had been wounded. None had begun looking for jobs yet. Chad and Rob were still considered to be on active duty because of their wounds and so they weren’t permitted to work outside the Army. And the others didn’t seem quite ready to adjust to civilian life. They were spending a lot of time together, a kind of mutual protection pact.

Andy Flint: People ask you the two questions, every time they see us — “Did you know Nate Brown? Did you kill anybody?” Everybody wants to know that question from soldiers from Iraq. And those are the two questions that make it impossible to forget. Those are the two things that we hated the most about being there.

Tom Brokaw: I talked to a lot of soldiers who say they don’t tell their family everything because it’s just too hard for the families.

Tim Haag: Yeah you don’t tell them everything.

Ken Comstock:  And they just won’t understand.

Flint: Yeah, I almost don’t want them to know everything because who we were there is like a totally different person. When your adrenaline is pumped, you’ll do things that you would never even think about doing in the U.S. And, you know, for me to tell them some of the stuff that we did it’s, you know, it’s not, it’s like I didn’t even do it. It’s almost like you watched a movie of yourself.

Of course some things are hard to hide. Ken Comstock, the gung-ho soldier, returned from Walter Reed Army Medical Center with a prominent reminder of his time in Iraq.

Brokaw: You’ve got your cap on covering up your scar.

Comstock:  Yeah. (removes cap)

Brokaw:  We should take a look at it. When people see that, how do they react?

Comstock: They stare. They stare for quite a while. And then eventually, they’ll come over or make eye contact with me, and then come over and ask, you know, “Well, what happened to your head?” And, you know, it’s one of those things that you don’t really want to talk about.

Ken knows he’ll have to undergo more surgeries. He is also trying to tackle another problem.

Comstock:  I’m up all night sometimes until 3, 4 a.m., not being able to fall asleep, because I know when I do I’m just going to be up in a couple more hours because I have dreams of things that happened when we were over there. Just people shooting and people dying that I have close relationships with… stuff like that.

Ken’s been told it’s what he can expect. He came home with post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Despite his physical and mental scars, Ken Comstock is as passionate about the military as he was before he went to war.

Comstock: The only thing that I am frustrated about with this injury was the fact that they told me I had to retire from the military. But if they give me the opportunity, just sign my name right back up on that paper and I’m right back into the fight. I’m not going to let a little injury just stop me from doing the one thing that I love to do in this world.

Ken’s “little injury” brought him a Purple Heart for being wounded while serving. His buddy Rob Hemsing also received the medal. 

But it was more complicated for Rob:

Rob Hemsing: It’s not really an honor because I got it because I wasn’t good enough at my job. I got it because I got, I lost. I got hurt, you know. 

In so many ways, Rob is getting his life on track. He has a new girlfriend, Jessica, who is helping him feel more grounded. He has better use of his remaining six fingers than he had ever imagined during his darkest days at Walter Reed Army Medical center. But ever since he came home, even the most everyday activities have become an ordeal.

Hemsing: The hardest thing to learn how to do was to brush my teeth. Cause taking off the toothpaste cap with one hand and pouring the toothpaste onto the brush with one hand — it’s kinda complicated. I used to have to put it in my neck and squeeze down and put the cap back on with my mouth. It took awhile to learn how to do that.

Rob is confronting other frustrations as well.

Hemsing: Some people yell to get their aggression out. Some people play sports. You know, some people write poetry. Well, I play guitar. So, not having that it’s like a feeling of wanting to scream but you can’t.

He tries to play, but he keeps bumping into his limitations.

Hemsing: The scarring and the grafting really inhibits my ability to pull my thumb over or bend my wrist. And a lot of that is the tendons are just gone. They’re just not there. And you can’t move something that’s not there. 

Flint: Coming home wasn’t at all how we had pictured it. It was awesome to be home, but it was almost scary to be home. We had grown so accustomed to that life that coming to a new life was really hard.

What’s been most difficult for Andy Flint is that he’s finding the work he did as a medic in Iraq a tough act to follow now that he’s home.

Flint: My job in Iraq was to take care of people. It was to fight an enemy. You know, supposedly helping the entire United States. Now I’m gonna go home and now what? Do blood tests at a doctor’s office?

But the experiences he had saving lives overseas have led Andy to make a surprising decision about his future.

Flint: I don’t want to do medicine any more. Every time I work on somebody who’s got anything wrong with their head, I think of Kenny, and how he was squirming around on his bed. Every time, I work with somebody who’s bleeding from the leg, or has a broken leg, I think of Chad screaming. Every kind of injury, I saw times 10 in Iraq. And I don’t want to relive injuries every single day. I’m definitely done with medicine.

Andy hopes to study political science and get a job one day at the CIA or the FBI.

Chad Byrne came back from Walter Reed with a metal rod in his leg and the heartbreak that he will never again be the athlete he once was.

Brokaw: You get up every day, and have to get a cane to get around, right?

Chad Byrne: Now I’m getting a little bit better but yeah.

Brokaw: Get angry about that?

Bryne: It’s aggravating. Everybody’s walking, you know, they’re way ahead of me, and I’m still trotting along behind. It’s aggravating. 

And when Chad’s not with his buddies he feels a sense of isolation that he never knew before. 

Bryne: You come home, it’s like I can’t talk to anybody about it. You know, you can, but people that haven’t been there, they look at you and they feel sorry for you. But, they don’t know. They don’t know what to say to you.

It’s a relief when he goes to physical therapy. Anything to keep his mind occupied. The odds are long but Chad has a clear-cut goal in mind:

Byrne: Hopefully, I’d like to be walking’ and running’ by a year, so I’ll be able to play basketball. 

Tim Haag isn’t sure what the future holds for him. But he’s certain about the past and what it means to him.

Tim Haag: I really enjoy the Army. I really loved the National Guard and I love the guys I worked with. Over there we had a sense of purpose and something to do, and now it’s just like, “All right, what am I gonna do tonight?” All right, I’ll wake up and take care of this stuff during the day and then I’ll go get drunk later on, I’ll pass out and wake up tomorrow and I’ll do the same thing over again.

Tim used to find solace in drawing. But now he has trouble focusing.

Haag: I can’t even draw anymore. I went to college for graphic arts and design, ‘cause I love drawing, that’s all I ever enjoyed doing. But I don’t know, I’m just kind of mentally blocked, I guess.

Tim was awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery in fighting the insurgents on Easter Sunday, but he still is not at peace with his actions.

Haag: I never really talked to anybody, like any of my friends in detail about it until I saw Rob. And I started talking to him about it. And it’s like I’m starting to deal with it now. And, over in Iraq, it was kind of easy to put it in the back of my mind, because there’s always another task ahead.

Like all the soldiers in the Nighthawk platoon, their leader, Sgt. Patrick Abrams is trying to recover as well. He was hurt in the same explosion that wounded Chad. But what troubles him most now is not his bum leg or ailing shoulder, but what happened to the young men under his watch.

Sgt. Abrams:  Every time I see Robbie, I feel guilty. You know, the kid’s scarred up for life. I mean, poor kid. But I guess that’s war. I don’t know. You know? You just wish you could have done better. Somehow.

Now he hopes his boys can move on.

Sgt. Abrams: If you don’t get on with your life and they get in our heads, they beat us. You know? The bad guys beat us, you know. We made it out of there, but you know, if they’re in your head, you’re just not on with your life any more. So you’ve got to get on with it.

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