Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan: Personal Accounts of 22 Americans Who Served

199 Pages·2013·5.55 MB·English

by  Harry Spiller

Veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan
ALSO BY HARRY SPILLER
AND FROM MCFARLAND
Scars of Vietnam: Personal Accounts by
Veterans and Their Families (2012 [1994])
Death Angel: A Vietnam Memoir of a Bearer
of Death Messages to Families (2012 [1992])
Support Programs for Ex-Offenders:
A State-by-State Directory (2011)
American POWs in World War II: Twelve Personal
Accounts of Captivity by Germany and Japan (2009)
Pearl Harbor Survivors: An Oral History
of 24 Servicemen (2002)
Prisoners of Nazis: Accounts by American POWs
in World War II (1998)
American POWs in Korea:
Sixteen Personal Accounts (1998)
Veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan
Personal Accounts of
22 Americans Who Served
HARRY SPILLER
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Spiller, Harry, 1945–
Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan : personal accounts of 22
Americans who served / Harry Spiller.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4869-2
softcover : acid free paper ♾
1. Iraq War, 2003–2011—Personal narratives, American.
2. Afghan War, 2001– —Personal narratives, American.
3. United States—Armed Forces—Biography. 4. Soldiers—
United States—Biography. I. Title.
DS79.766.A1S65 2014
956.7044'30922—dc23 2013037438
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
© 2014 Harry Spiller. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: The police mentor team Iron Horse in Helmand
Province, Afghanistan, 2009, from left: two unidentified Afghan
Civil Order Police O‡cers, SFC Thomas Verdorn, SPC J effery
Daily, SPC Daniel Baker, SSG Robert McGuire, Cpl. Benjamin
Chapman, Sgt. Robert Mocoby, Sgt. Dustin Cade, SPC Pete Oye
and dog Kimmy, SSG Randy Thacker, SPC Brent Corzine, Sgt.
Ryan Norman, ANCOP Major Noddler, Interpreter Vodka, SFC
Edward Sadler, Interpreter Shotgun, and an unidentified Afghan
Civil Order Police O‡cer (courtesy Daniel Baker)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
For Tara
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all the Afghanistan and Iraq veterans
who shared their stories for this book. I would like also to thank
Jenifer Wilkins for her typing assistance with the voice recorder,
and always a special thanks to Candice Lahr of
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. Sergeant Lindsay Griffith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Corporal Jesse R. Hines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. Corporal Neal Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4. Staff Sergeant Stacey Miesaloski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5. Lance Corporal Dustin Whitehead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6. Specialist Daniel E. Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
7. Sergeant Joseph Napiorkowski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
8. Warrant Officer Tim Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
9. Major Greg Settle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
10. Sergeant First Class Gregory L. Strong . . . . . . . . . . . 56
11. Sergeant Chase Salmela . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
12. Staff Sergeant Scott Edwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
13. Sergeant Michael S. Mormino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
14. Staff Sergeant Christopher Niemeyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
15. Sergeant First Class Heath Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
16. Staff Sergeant Jason Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
17. Specialist Mark Ferrell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
18. Sergeant Alicia Edwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
vii
viii Table of Contents
19. Corporal Levi Wampler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
20. Staff Sergeant Patrick Tullis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
21. Private First Class Nicholas Jennings . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
22. Private First Class Joseph Underhile . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Appendix A—Afghanistan: U.S. Combat Chronolog y . . . . 147
Appendix B—Iraq: U.S. Combat Chronolog y . . . . . . . . . . 168
Appendix C—Statistical Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Introduction
In retaliation for the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States,
U.S. Armed Forces began air attacks against Al Qaeda and Taliban military
camps and bases in Afghanistan. On October 19, the first combat troop para-
troopers were dropped in that country.
On March 19, 2003, American and British forces began the invasion of
Iraq. The U.S. government called the conflict “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
There are several basic reasons for the war. First, there was lingering tension
and hostility from the Gulf War of 1991 in which Iraqi occupation troops
were forced out of Kuwait. Second, the Iraqi government agreed to surrender
or destroy several types of weapons, including SCUD missiles and various
weapons of mass destruction. Third, there were two “no fly zones” established
over northern and southern Iraq for the protection of Iraqi minority groups
who were in opposition to the Saddam Hussein government. Allied planes
patrolled these areas, and over the years Iraqi air defense forces fired missiles
and other weapons at the allied planes, mostly American and British, in unsuc-
cessful attempts to shoot them down. Fourth, following the attacks on the
United States on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush implied an
Iraqi connection with Al-Qaeda using the potential threat of Saddam sup-
plying weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to terrorists attacking the United
States.
On March 19, 2003, at 5:34 A.M., U.S. Stealth bombers and Tomahawk
cruise missiles struck leading targets in and around the Iraqi capital, Baghdad,
to begin the second major war between the United States–led coalition and
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Soon thereafter, air attacks began against Iraqi targets
in southern Iraq, followed by missile attacks from Iraq toward U.S. military
positions in the Kuwaiti desert.
On the first full day of the war, March 20, U.S. and British ground
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