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The story of seven young men
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Kathy Brown had been bracing herself for April 11th, 2005, the first anniversary of her son Nathan’s death. She treasures seeing his buddies at the memorial. But, of course, it is a day filled with sadness.
Still, Kathy can tell she is slowly starting to heal. And the Nighthawk platoon is helping.
Kathy Brown: No one can take the place of Nathan, but I’ll tell you, they’re filling a void.
Tom Brokaw: But is it sometimes hard to see them going about their lives? It’s not?
Brown: No.
Brokaw: You don’t ever get angry and think, “Why did they come back and Nate didn’t?”
Brown: No, no.
Not just another statistic
All of Nathan’s buddies from the Guard feel a sense of responsibility toward Kathy. But Rob Hemsing carries an especially heavy load: It’s hard for him not to dwell on the way one random event set the stage for the Easter Sunday attack.
Rob Hemsing: That day when they loaded up the truck, our original places were, I was where Nate was and then they started loading the truck up with garbage and stuff. So we all had to slide down. So, a lot of times I think of — what if that didn’t happen? What if we didn’t slide down? I just feel guilty a lot of the times about it. Especially when I’m lucky enough to go hang out with Kathy. It’s tough. Cause I look at her in the face and just, all I’m thinking in my head is “I’m sorry that it’s me standing before you and not your son.”
Brokaw: 10 years from now, Rob, do you think Nate Brown will be forgotten in this community?
Hemsing: Everyone here, it’s our biggest fear, you know. To us, no. To his family, no. To those who knew him, it’s impossible. But, you know, how many people do you know in Glens Falls that died in Vietnam? It happens, you know. People stop telling the story.
Pete Hull: Eventually the posters start coming down. The papers stop reporting on it.
Andy Flint: Well, if it continues to go like this, there’ll be another person from Glens Falls killed. And then Nate will be in the background. It’ll be now about the new person.
The soldiers are aware that the Army and the National Guard are having significant recruitment trouble. Both branches failed to meet their 2005 quotas and these young men understand why.
Hemsing: Everybody sees us go out, half of us come back wounded, some of us not come back at all. Some people just sit there and think it’s not worth it, you know.
Brokaw: Some young guy comes to you and says, “I’m thinking about joining the National Guard,” what do you tell him?
Ken Comstock: Go to the recruiter’s office.
Hemsing: Think about it carefully. But if it’s the decision you really want to make, God bless you. I don’t think anyone here has any regret about it. I mean, I loved my five years in the Army. It was the best five years of my life. I guarantee you, everyone at this table feels the same way.
Lives bogged down in benefits processing
But now that they are home, what about the next few years in their lives? Moving on, they say, would go a lot smoother if the Army were not so bogged down in processing paperwork that defines their disability benefits. Rob Hemsing says the process took him a full year.
Hemsing: My whole life revolved around a piece of paper slowly making its way around the whole government. It’s just that the resources were not set aside before this war for what ended up happening.
In fact, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the number of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan needing medical treatment is four times the original budget.
Chad Byrne is still caught in the system.
Chad Byrne: I’m just waiting to get discharged before I can start my life.
Chad won’t get discharged until the Army is satisfied that his leg is better. And because he still is considered “active duty,” Chad was told he was not permitted to go to college.
But he learned that in some cases soldiers can apply for special permission to take classes. So he did that... and he says after many months of waiting he finally received permission to enroll part-time. He doesn’t know how long it will take before he learns what disability benefits he will collect.
The new normal
When I went with these close friends from the Nighthawk platoon to their favorite bar, it was a comfort zone for them, a hang-out from before the war, where they shot a little pool and kept up the good-natured bantering.
But so much has changed.
Hemsing: The whole left side of my body is all covered with scars.
The scars may be covered, but the soldiers are painfully aware of how trying the healing process can be.
During the spring, Andy, Rob and Pete get together for jam sessions. It’s like old times, but it’s not quite the same for Rob.
Since he was wounded he’s had to forego playing guitar and learn a new instrument, the bass. He’s also had to watch his buddy Andy play his guitar effortlessly.
Hemsing: I look over at him when I’m trying to play bass and I see him being able to do what I used to do with ease, you know? It makes me jealous.
Still he’s grateful that his friends have pushed him to keep trying.
Hemsing: About a year ago, you know these people went through hell to save my life. You know they were getting shot at while they were trying to save me. And like they don’t want to go through all that effort just for them to watch me get depressed and just waste my life.
And Rob has some other things on his mind. He got some news from his girlfriend Jessica.
Hemsing: I found out I was gonna be a dad. So, that’s kinda changed everything.
Rob, who is now studying finance in college, thinks becoming a father just may help him move on.
Hemsing: I can definitely see how having a kid is going to force me to just forget about the past, you know, and it just forces you to take the next step in life.
Ken Comstock has returned to Walter Reed for more surgery on his head. Coming back here and seeing other wounded soldiers has taken a toll on him. But he’s made a decision about his future: he has decided to become a police officer. And Ken is finally making progress in an area that has plagued him for months.
Comstock: There’s actually a couple of days where I do get a good night's sleep now, but I don’t think anything will ever be 100 percent again.
Pete Hull knows the best way for him to adjust to life back home is to pick up where he left off... singing. He’s back in college studying music education, taking vocal lessons and doing what made him happy before he went to war.
Still, like the others in the platoon, Pete grapples with vivid images and disturbing memories that have left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Pete Hull: If anyone from our unit said they don’t have PTSD it would be very surprising.
Tim Haag has spent months getting used to civilian life again, how it feels, how it sounds.
Tim Haag: It’s quiet. There’s nothing going on. It’s quiet. Everybody’s got, we’ve all moved on. Because we can’t all hang out. Everybody’s doing their own thing.
Tim has begun writing about his experiences in Iraq and one day hopes to publish his story. He’s looking forward to college although he feels worlds apart from the typical student.
Haag: You know, they may be the same age as me, but I don’t feel the same age as them. Not by far. Not by a long shot.
Andy Flint has been spending time coaching freshman baseball and for him, it’s a whole new ball game.
Andy Flint: I feel I have a bunch of little kids that are my own and I’m teaching them stuff. Is that something I did before? Yeah. But I didn’t get the same satisfaction. I’m seeing life from a whole different perspective. I don’t know if I became an adult during the fight, or if something triggered it. But I am most definitely an adult now.
Andy was accepted by Temple University in Philadelphia which will make him the first one from this group of friends to leave the area.
Flint: It’s time for me to, you know, start doing the adult things, start living… like the life that you grow up for.
Kathy Brown says lately she has eased off pressing the government for answers on how much armor soldiers in Iraq are receiving.
Brokaw: Did you ever get any satisfaction out of all this?
Brown: They assured me that there is armor, and armor is being sent. I try to check up and make sure. I have suspicions there’s not enough.
In fact, as the war in Iraq continues, the Pentagon is facing the troubling reality that although improved armor is being supplied to troops, the insurgents are developing more lethal bombs: Explosives that at times are proving too powerful even for armored Humvees.
As for the politics surrounding this war, these soldiers think it’s irrelevant.
Flint: Soldiers shouldn’t be involved in politics because your only job is to fight. It doesn’t matter if you’re fighting a good cause or bad cause because when the fight starts, you don’t care. All you’re fighting for is your friends.
In less than a year they went through a lifetime of ordeals that will likely divide their lives into “before” and “after.” Yet when they left for Iraq, none of them was older than 23. When this group of young men, home from combat, traveled just south of Glens Falls to the war memorial in Saratoga Springs, New York, they can see a place for themselves in history.
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Dateline NBC Tom Brokaw speaks on the men of Nighthawk platoon at a war memorial in Saratoga Springs. |
Flint: To have your name on that wall means a heck of a lot more to me now than it did before.
Brokaw: Other veterans come and talk to you about what they’ve been through and what you’ve been through?
Bryne: Oh, yeah. Down in D.C., I had some Vietnam vets come down and see me down in the hospital. And I mean they were even moved. You know they started tearing up, you know. And kind of felt good in a way.
Hemsing: ‘Cause they understand.
Brokaw: Is that helpful to you?
Bryne: Real helpful.
Brokaw: So is this just a passing time in your life or do you think that this experience will bind you for the rest of your lives?
Haag: It already has.
Comstock: Oh, yeah. It definitely already has.
Flint: We’re a group that we’ve been through a lot and we’ll always be a group. I mean there’s no doubt that we’re going to be together if stuff like this happens. We were friends before, but now we really are brothers and family.
What happened to the men of the Nighthawk platoon is not unique to Glens Falls. All across America, combat veterans of Iraq are back home, proud of their service, but so many are struggling to put their lives together, coping with terrible injuries and mourning the loss of friends. What they have seen and what they’ve been through has put a deep imprint on them — and they should not feel they have to endure this stage of the war alone.
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