Also, I edited it about 12 times now, catching typos and such. I really appreciate you all seeing through the weakness for the story.

@Tim: You think you’d run away. Many fear they will. But many find that they don’t. And it’s in that crucible that we find out what we’ll do and who we are.

@Ali: Thanks for saying this. In some ways, that’s what bothered me most about posting this, because it portrays something I don’t often identify with. There are many men and women who face far worse everyday, and I had it relatively easy. After all, this is a story about something that didn’t happen…or maybe it did. It’s hard to tell.

And through chance and planning, I was fortunate enough to never have to go through the roughest part of combat. But some of the stories I may write will detail what others did, and I hope I do justice to them.

@Kirstin: I agree that stories like these should be required reading – in some ways, they make explicit the cost of our freedom. It may turn out that the next phase of my service to our nation is telling the stories of our uniformed women and men. Doing so sits well with me in some ways, but I don’t know if I’m up to that responsibility. I have a lot of self-searching and veteran’s guilt to process before I do.

Thanks for your encouragement.

@Craig: It’s hard to give a black and white answer on this one, but in general, I think it’s a good policy. I’ll give a few non-obvious reasons, though there are many others.

A Soldier in combat knows the sound of the weapons of his allies – AK47s and M16s have distinct sounds. It’s hard to describe, but you can sense the flow of combat by paying attention to the different sounds being made from the rifles.

Were the enemy to capture enough of our weapons and use them in an ambush, it would be hard to tell friend from foe when those few seconds count. In an ambush, they have the initiative and all of the tactical advantages (if they know what they’re doing), and it would be a nightmare trying to sort out where your buddies are when you have tunnel vision and are keeping your head down.

Furthermore, every Soldier needs his weapon to maintain some sort of a defensive line. Capturing a weapon serves about the same purpose, tactically, as wounding a Soldier; either way, they’re effectively out of the fight.

Had we actually been engaged and were trying to retreat and regroup, then I likely would have left the weapon. But we were in a different situation that evening, and reporting that we didn’t look for it because we thought there may be an ambush would not have flown over very well. (You’d be surprised how little trust there is of a tactical commander’s intuition in today’s micromanaged military.)

So, yeah, as a general rule, it’s probably a good policy. It’s really hard going with such an abstract rule in the moment, though.

@Carla: I’m so glad you bring up the toll that war has on spouses and families. Interestingly, when you read literature about warfare, one of the big themes is the suffering of the families who lose or have to live without their sons – the Iliad is a perfect example of that.

Angela ended up doing her dissertation on how the families feel and how they coped with their Soldiers’ deployment. She got it, and she’s telling their story.

@Rachael: There are many ways to serve that you can do that don’t require such a huge lifestyle change, should you decide to do so. Volunteer as a firefighter, police officer, EMT, etc. – carrying a rifle is but one way to be a Guardian, and it’s not necessarily the best. I appreciate the desire within you to serve, and I hope you’ll really consider doing it. If you’d like to talk about this, email me and let me know – charlie AT productiveflourishing DOT com.

@Vicki: Thanks for your kind words, but I’m no hero – I just answered when my name was called. There are 18-year old kids kicking down doors and carrying Iraqi children out of harms’ way, 22-year-old sergeants who are trying to carry 20 other people through the chaos of firefights, and colonels and sergeants major carrying the weight of dead Soldiers on their shoulders – they deserve way more credit than I ever will.

I happen to be pretty expressive about most things, so my ability to verbalize the situation comes from that space. The difficult part is telling the story to people who don’t understand – and I found that to be a good challenge. Unfolding the details made the story a bit rough and long, and I really appreciate you (and everyone else) for sticking through it.

A large part of me wishes that I could go into the service so that I could truly learn leadership, bravery, and to do what it takes to protect loved ones from a world away. My four kids would probably be pretty upset with me if I went, and I know it isn’t a thing I can do right now in my life; but I envy you. I don’t envy you the fear or the realization that everyone’s lives are in your hands – but I envy you the clarity that can come from that kind of intensity and that kind of lived-out sacrifice day in and day out.

And also, of course, like the rest of us, thank you for your service. Thank you for your willingness to be the best soldier and officer you could be. You’re an inspiration to me.

Beautiful work.

When you wrote “Angela has always hated this story… She still can’t decide whether she wants to hit me, hug me, be mad at me, call me an idiot, be proud of me, or what…” – I really got it.

“Life is complex – why should the complexity be reduced to one emotion?” Too true. Too true.

You are in my thoughts… Thanks for sharing, brother.

Thanks for sharing that story. There’s so much in that one episode.
I’m a fan of complexity too, especially when it comes to personal identity.

This part gave me pause:
Losing a rifle is a big deal. Whenever a weapon is lost, that information makes it up to the Secretary of Defense. It doesn’t matter why it was lost or how it was lost – it gets forwarded, and that’s somebody’s ass. You can’t just report it and drive on.

Do you think in hindsight that this is a good policy? It results in high accountability and great care for weapons in general, but it could have unintended, deadly results. Yes, it wasn’t just an M16 in this case, but would an M16 have been worth the risk to the mission and so many lives?

Thanks for your service and for sharing a glimpse of the experience.

JH

I’d really like to hear your current thoughts about the lost weapon policy.