A Young Lieutenant’s Narrative From Afghanistan

First Lieutenant Rob Anders, a 1998 graduate of Newtown High School and 2002 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, is serving with the US Army in Afghanistan. He is an infantry platoon leader with the Second Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, part of the Second Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division.

Both airborne and ranger qualified, he recently was awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. He has received an invitation to teach at West Point, and has written six chapters for a book about Afghanistan. He also was featured in Absolutely American, the New York Times bestseller by David Lipsky, about his G-4 unit at West Point.

First Lt Anders is the son of W. Scott and M. Barrett Anders of Newtown. Mr Anders, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserves and a 1977 West Point graduate, is a vice president at New York Life; his wife is a French teacher in Region 15.

Following are excerpts from a letter and from chapters of Rob Anders’ book in progress.

What’s Really Going On   In Afghanistan?

Afghanistan is not a “forgotten front.”

My soldiers, classmates, and close friends and I are fighting and winning the war there everyday. When we are not rooting out the Taliban and foreign terrorist fighters or removing buried weapons caches, we are working with local leaders to further the very plan designed to “rebuild that country” and “win the peace.”

What is happening are the things you never hear about in the news; all the success stories of advancements of human rights, security, and democracy. Those stories are overshadowed by sensational reports of more casualties or destruction, which constitute only small pieces of the grand puzzle.

Over the last six months I have personally inspected the construction of three elementary schools, which will enable more than 600 young boys and girls to go to school before November. My platoon medics have saved the lives of young and old civilians alike; and we have overseen the improvement and establishment of medical facilities with everything from antibiotics to x-ray machines.

On a daily basis we support the legitimization of the fledgling government through the training and resourcing of the local police, the development of improved infrastructure, and the delivery of farming equipment, like tractors and seed-distributors, to remote tribes. We have bolstered protection of voter registration sites, and have facilitated the security and success of the first free democratic election in the nation’s history.

On September 11, 2004, my platoon and I patrolled a destitute region to inspect the progress of 32 different wells we contracted to bring water to thirsty villages. My platoon and I have done a great deal to build my little piece of Afghanistan.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) oversees the 34 countries that are involved in the fight in Afghanistan. You should see the Air Field in Bagram! We are hardly isolated. There is one long road that parallels the flight line there. To walk its length is to pass by the South Korean camp, the Belgian camp, the Portuguese, the Australians, the Dutch, and the New Zealanders, to only name a few. It looks like we’re hosting the Olympics, and it is an inspiring thing to see the global support and commitment there on the frontiers of freedom.

Afghanistan is not forgotten. Every day we are working to ensure that it is not a breeding ground for terrorists. Every day we are building the country. We are winning the peace. We have not turned away from Afghanistan. In fact, by the end of my tour of duty, I will have dedicated the 24th year of my life to that cause.

Combat Infantryman Badge

A few days ago I was up at Bastard Base in Sharona. I like the cool nights and slept on a cot outside on the rocky alleyway in between our platoon barracks. I had developed a bad cold the day prior, and my health had been deteriorating rapidly by the time I put my head down to sleep. The morning sunshine came blazing over the range to the distant east, and I could feel it heating up my sleeping bag and warming my knit cap.

“THUUNG . . . . . SHHHHIIIIIEEEEEEEW . . . . . wwwhhhaamm!

That was an unusual sound for a Saturday morning. I sat up and pried my eyes open. My head weighed a ton, my hands were cold, and my eyelids fought to stay closed. I felt miserable. Specialist Rayala, our native Hawaiian, leaned out the doorway and looked over at me, “What was that?”

I said miserably, “They’re going to have to do better than that!” and flopped back onto my cot, trying to wish the rocket attack away. Seconds later . . . THUUNG . . . . . SHHHHIIIIIEEEEEEEW . . . . . wwwhhhaamm!

That second rocket got everyone’s attention and the base immediately became active. Our Forward Observers climbed up the water tower to find a point of origin. I dragged myself to my truck, and we were ready to roll in a matter of minutes. Another rocket flew over the base, and landed in a distant field with no explosion.

My platoon and the commander and I pulled out of the gate and headed north. We weren’t 300 meters down the road when a rocket exploded 50m away from the middle of my convoy. “WWWWHHAAMM!” That was loud!

I don’t know if it was my weakened state or that we’ve become calloused to loud noises. I called back over the radio to see if we sustained any damage or casualties. Thankfully and amazingly, we didn’t. So we pressed on, without a change in blood pressure. It was as simple as that.

The rest of the day for me was miserable. I didn’t want to speak with any of the locals especially because my voice was gone from coughing so much. Nevertheless, we traveled around and tried to piece together the point of origin based on eyewitness statements from nomads who saw the launch explosions, and ear-witnesses along the rocket line of flight. It also took us several more hours to find the dud buried in the desert, then clear the area, and then blow it in place. It was another long day.

This afternoon we traveled back to Orgun E for a brief overnight refit. We timed the visit so that we could participate in the Battalion’s Combat Infantryman’s Badge [CIB] ceremony. The Division Commander, Major General Olson, flew in with a contingent of other top brass. Obviously it wasn’t possible, or very safe, to have the whole task force in a formation. Still, each unit was represented. I was there with Captain Sego to represent Bravo Company’s officers. General Olson said a few words, and then Colonel Pedersen, our Brigade Commander, came through and pinned on my CIB above my US ARMY patch over my left breast pocket.

I was the Brigade Commander’s escort for the CIB dinner that followed the pinning ceremony. The Colonel and I spoke about the politics and strategy of what we’re doing here. I told him that it was a frustrating way to earn a CIB here in Afghanistan. We are so careful to positively identify enemy and distinguish them from civilians, that it seems like we’re getting shot at, but can’t shoot back. Fighting the phantom seems very one-sided in that the initiative rests almost entirely with the enemy, even though we have the upper hand. We talked of the sensitivity of our rules-of-engagement and I praised the enormous responsibility of the soldiers, trying to incorporate them into the dry conversation by calling them “strategic soldiers.”

It is truly amazing the amount of responsibility the country puts on these young men. They are mostly right out of high schools from all over the country. For many it’s the first time they’ve been outside the United States or even away from home. With the immaturity of inexperience, our nation’s young men shoulder incredible responsibilities. They may have only a split second to make a tactical decision that could mean whether they live or die, or whether their buddy survives or not. Whatever that decision is can have an immediate and potentially critical effect at the strategic level. We demand that the youngest private considers all of that in the flash of an instant before they pull a trigger. To say this environment is delicate is an understatement. And to say these soldiers aren’t the best in the world is a disservice.

As I said before, the Colonel and I got wrapped up in a discussion about the politics with Pakistan, and the strategy of Paktika and the rest of Afghanistan. In the end, what he described was everything of which everyone at the table was already well aware. It became apparent that essentially the only difference between the Colonel and us, then, was that we are the ones who actually execute the strategic tactics. In that, and with all due respect, it must not be much fun to be a Full Bird out here. The strategic arbitrators aren’t just field-grade officers anymore; they are each and every soldier on the ground.

Three Years After           September 11

I should think that everyone would never forget what happened on this day in 2001. It was so vivid and surreal that it seems like we will eternally remember it with the clarity of an endless series of yesterdays. I’ll never forget; I was in class back at the Academy. I was taking a test when my professor came in and turned on the classroom television just in time to watch the second plane impact the second tower. Time stood still. It froze in everyone’s minds. A few hours later, I took a long walk back from class and around Trophy Point. I stopped to look across the Hudson shimmering on what was supposed to be an ordinarily spectacular autumn day in the Highlands. One of my best friends, Eliel Pimentel, caught up with me to tell me the Pentagon was hit and the Towers were gone. We recognized that our lives and the world would forever assume a dramatic new course.

That course has carried me here to the very corner of the earth where that evil was able to spawn. The heavy fighting has subsided in the last three years, and the tide of democracy is drowning our enemies here. Still, there are people here filled with hatred and anger deeper than I can comprehend. They are still trying to kill us.

But we are winning. Try as they may, we are winning. And in addition to our focus of killing terrorists and disrupting their networks, we are attacking their sanctuary every day. That was the nature of my attack today.

My platoon and an ANA squad and I drove through the labyrinth streets around the district of Sharan to inspect the 32 wells that we have sponsored and contracted to support thirsty tribes and villages. Most are completed, and the others are nearly finished. Their importance is obvious, and the locations of the wells are the focus of these villages the same way an entertainment center is the focal point of an American household.

The wells are only just a “drop in the bucket,” if you will, among our projects in the region. Those contracts, as well as others to build schools for boys and girls, empowering police forces with radios and vehicles, and establishing medical clinics, for example, impact and affect this nebulous battlefield like smart bombs would on enemy positions. Only instead of destroying, we are building. And in doing so, we are ruining the enemy.

This is confusing to my soldiers, who are experts of violence and destruction. This landscape isn’t passable by NGOs and other agencies that are more formally trained in the construction of a country. They are vulnerable “soft” targets and have little means of securing themselves. There is no better organization, I feel, that is suited for operations here than the US Army Infantry. We can travel anywhere with invincible firepower and spirit, and solid leadership. And at the same time we have the creativity, ingenuity, and flexibility to broker the development and stabilization of a new government. It’s not something that we have trained specifically to do, but we are accomplishing the mission by pioneering new techniques, tactics, and procedures. In our new course and three years later, we are writing history’s new chapters today with the powerful pen of democracy and enforcing it with the mighty sword of freedom.