A BUFFALO CONNECTION: At left accepting a flag during a recent transition of authority ceremony in Afghanistan is Col. Brian K. Bafle of the New York Army National Guard's 27th Brigade Combat Team in Kabul.
In the center background, to the right of the flag pole and standing at attention, is Command Sgt. Major David Piwowarski of Buffalo. At right, presenting the flag to Bafle is Major General Robert Cone, departing commander of the Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix VII.
The activated New York Guard members, with hundreds of them from Buffalo Niagara, are training members of the Afghan army and national police force.
April 29, 2008 - 12:16 PM | Comment
It’s been 100 days since my husband has left on this deployment. So far we’ve been lucky, no “major” issues to deal with, only car and furnace problems that we solved before telling him!
We’re old hands at this and have learned that you don’t tell your soldier who is 10,000 miles away about the little things that he can only worry about but can’t fix, until you have fixed them yourself! You see since the events of Sept 11. 2001, my husband, a Reservist, and dozens of others like him have now served both at home and overseas on multiple missions. My husband has served over 1000 days (for those like my husband who counts days away from his children), including a 14-month tour in Iraq. That’s 34 months of Active service. If the Army keeps its word this time and his tour is not extended, he will add a year to his total.
But to tell the truth we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our children have grown up with a true sense of what it means to serve, and the words “Duty, Honor, Country" have real meaning to them. They are truly proud of their father. Yes, he has missed holidays, soccer, ballet and birthdays and will more of the same, but they are willing to accept that.
I know that the community support is out there, I see it every day in bumper stickers that say “Marine Mom” or "Iraqi Vet" or "Vietnam Vet," and in Yellow Ribbons. I welcome all of those in the community to join in the blog with their comments. The soldiers aren’t only writing in, they are reading this too and need all the support they can get!
--Patti Treverton, wife of 1Sgt Patrick Treverton 2/101 CAV HHC Afghanistan
Today as I sit here in my empty home the silence is deafening. The other boys left for school earlier and this is the time of day when I sit down and type away in my journal and for our blog. It is also the time of day when my oldest and I would touch base and chat.
Today like everyday since January 3, there is no one here to chat with. No one to tell me about the grand plans for his life or to crack a joke that brings me to my knees with laughter and no one to tease me about my attire. No one to ask me for a favor or complain about the dinner selection, but most of all there is no one to tell me “I love you Big Mama” as he walks out the door. Unless you have ever placed your baby in harm’s way, you can never begin to understand the pain that surrounds a mother’s heart when you send your baby off to war.
War is ugly, painful and difficult for those directly affected by it. No soldier wants war. It was General Douglas MacArthur who said it best, "The Soldier above all others prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest scars of war."
No Mother or Father wants war especially, for our children. We spend years protecting, guiding and loving our children with a desire for them to have a bright, loving and peaceful life. We (military parents) serve in silence with our children, standing quietly in the shadows of their world.
War is something that the human race has been dealing with for many years. I was a child during the Vietnam War, but I still have memories of it. Memories of news footage roll through my mind. I remember watching the TV as the soldiers were being filmed riding on the back of a truck waving to the camera while they headed off to some remote area. I remember the words of a soldier waving and saying Hi Mom. As a child, I though nothing of the importance of those simple words, but as a Mother I cherish them.
Like any Mom, those childhood memories have stayed with me. As a Military Mom, at times those memories haunt me. Today, I find myself hanging onto my computer instead of the news channel. My computer is the first thing I look at when I roll out of bed and the last thing I view before I go to sleep. WHY??? I’m looking for the Hi Mom. I just want two little words to know that my baby is ok. Sure we would love to get a full detail of the day’s events from our babies, but in reality there are days when it would be more than we as mothers could bear to hear. For now I am grateful for a “Hi Mom….I’m OK. I miss you and love you!! Love, Your Boy”.
Just precious words to any Military Mothers!
-- Christine Steward is the mother of Army National Guard Sgt. Jon Aisel, a medic in Afghanistan
Going through a deployment is like going through a blender. Everything is mixed up and intensified – good things and bad things. It’s not that life isn’t regular life… it’s just that everything you feel feels bigger. Some days are pretty tough. During the last deployment we started calling them “survival days.” As soon as we realized we were having a survival day, we backed off and tried to give ourselves the space to pull ourselves together again.
Sometimes the only thing that helped would be talking with another military spouse – even if only by e-mail. It’s hard to understand why things are as hard as they are if you’re not in a military family or very close to one. I knew that another military spouse would completely understand – enough said.
I have made a conscious effort to make sure my kids have the same opportunity. They need to be among other “military kids” who understand the stresses of being a military kid during a deployment. That was hard during the last deployment, but there are more opportunities for them this time around.
A huge new opportunity this time in our area is an Operation Purple Camp being hosted at Pioneer Camp in Angola. I know lots of people have not heard of the camps because the program is only about 4 years old and there has not been one in our area before. These free, week-long, overnight camps are hosted at locations across the country and are free to children of deployed/deploying service members from all branches (“purple”).
I was sold when I saw the phrase “They Serve Too” on the website. Among the kids at camp, the things they are going through with the deployment will be normal. It will be an escape from the worries of war, with normal camp activities like swimming, canoeing, campfires, and large group games. But it will also help them connect better with what their dad does with activities like desert camp, MREs, map and compass skills, ropes course, etc. Local military units get involved and bring equipment and training that is unique to the local military community. Of course, their mom will get a break that week, too!
Applications are only accepted until May 5th. They have a website at www.operationpurple.org and if you know of a military family with children spread the word. It can be hard to hear about these kinds of resources when you’re in the guard and reserve because we’re so spread out. The local camp can also field questions or help them apply if the online form is busy, and can even give a tour of the facilities.
Thank you to the staff at Pioneer Camp for making this camp available here for our children. The stresses feel so much bigger during deployment, but so does the impact of a kindness.
-- Susan Knowles
My team finally reached Afghanistan. We are in the capitol for inprocessing. It's really great to see all the guys from Buffalo. It's like old home week for me.
I received news that the team is moving out to the Southern region in a few days. There is a mix of excitement and melancholy. I am always excited to get to new places and people, but here I already know so many people and have such a support network in place; so i am divided.
All the guys here are doing real well and that pleases me very much, but I have to go where they send me. I'll fill you all in more when I have an answer.
--CPT Ryan
April 17, 2008 - 11:59 AM | Comment
Those first beautiful sunshine filled days of spring are finally here. God they're beautiful! As the sun starts to arc higher in the sky and the ground warms up, everything starts to bud-out and turn green. Unfortunately, the trees and grass don't have exclusivity here. The weeds grow, well like weeds and the 
shrubs look like they're sporting Bob-Marley dreads. The beds carry the overburden of last year's fall leaves that are half composted just waiting to host some new airborne chlorophyl based life form. All this stuff needs to be cleaned and tended to before the house looks like Blithering Heights.
You've got to remember this is Judy's job. She's the one who looks forward to coming home from work, slipping on the work gloves, grabbing the wheelbarrow and the shears and going to battle with the landscaping. She's the one who'll stay outside trimming and pruning 'til the bats come out to feed on the freshly hatched insects.
I certainly don't mind cutting the grass, trimming & edging, mostly because I get to use some really cool power tools. My mower does 9 miles an hour, has a seat belt and a roll bar. In the little more than an hour it takes to cut the lawn, my mind wanders off into the most obscure, serene, creative or introspective places you can imagine.
Unfortunately my mind finds no such happy place rearranging the pavers and meticulously plucking crushed red brick chunks from the hardwood mulch my snowplow deposited over the winter. It's like the second grade when you stare out the window for what seems like forever and you look at the clock and only two minutes has elapsed, no hope of freedom anytime soon. As I stare down the final few days of the kid's spring break I realize I really need to get the beds cleaned & Preened & lay down the mulch. Nope, this is most definitely Judy's job.
-- Phil Basinski
(Phil is holding down the homefront while his wife is in Afghanistan.)
April 14, 2008 - 12:59 PM | Comment
What to say? I'm finally here! I have to admit I'm in awe at everything I look at. The army can train you how to shoot a rifle, start an IV, and live out of a bag but a lot of what I see is people learning to adjust. It isn't as easy as most people would think, getting used to a whole new culture, land and way of acting. I live in the suburbs of Buffalo where I had my SUV parked in my two-car garage with my green lawn where I would get up and go to work at a doctor's office. This morning I looked out of my tent and finally a break from our week of rain, I finally got my first look at the mountains surrounding our camp. Breathtaking. Later on in the day when I went on a convoy, we went outside the wire and all you can say is wow. Never at any moment in life could anybody be more grateful for what you have until you see how some of these people live.
Since this is still our first week, we mostly have been doing our ride-alongs with the current force, who will be leaving shortly so we can take hold of the reins. Our training did a good job showing what to expect and how to do our jobs in confidence. One thing that always goes through my mind everytime I have gone out the wire is, this country has the potential to be such a beautiful and prosperous place. One can only hope that someday these people will have the fortitude to step up and make it happen. I do believe, though, that they're off to a good start.
--Spc. James Gustas
During the deployment ceremony at the Connecticut St. Armory back in January my wife Judy and I met Lou Michel who expressed an interest in tracking the daily doings of both the soldiers headed overseas and the families left to manage here at home. I must admit I was overwhelmed by emotions that day. When Lou asked how I felt I was quoted in the paper saying that I was "angry." The obvious interpretation was that I was angry at the government for putting us through this 400 days of misery. Contrary to what I assume most of you would suspect, this was not a tearful, honey I'm going to miss you send off. Rather it was a "serves you right, I hope you get your ass shot off" goodbye. Judy has known that this deployment was forthcoming yet she chose not to file for her 20 year letter, opting rather to execute and fulfill the mission she been training over 22 years for. Just as background, I don't have a political perspective on this war, I think of myself more as a pragmatist due to the conditions of being the minority gender as a military spouse. For the next year or so I'm a single dad trying to keep it together and move it forward. Hopefully the kids and I won't kill each other.
Right now the focus is maintaining the greatest atmosphere of normalcy for my 12 year old son and nine year old daughter. Normalcy means not allowing the deployment to get in the way of any of the events, activities or routines of the kids. The list of activities they're involved with includes: Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4H, chess club and ice hockey. Now that hockey season is over we add baseball, cheerleading and tennis. Honestly, aside from the shear volume of running around required it hasn't been that big of a deal so far. Judy comes from a very large family, many of whom still reside in the area. To a person they have all offered their assistance in helping out. My family is significantly smaller and I have only my mom and one of my three older brothers here in town. My mom is confined to a nursing home so as much as she'd like to help out she's on the receiving side of care nowadays. My family have always been the independent, self sufficient types. For any one of us to reach out and ask for help is anathema. Learning to get past that attitude brings it's own level of discomfort. I and I would hasten to say "we" hate the feeling that I (we) "owe" somebody. For the record, I like to be in the black on the favor ledger.
With events planned far enough out on the calendar or regularly scheduled events it's easy to enlist the help of Judy's family. My daughter's first communion is coming up later this month. Judy's brother and sister in law have removed the burden of planning and executing the party arrangements. It was a seamless hand-off, one I have the greatest appreciation for. I'm left with the responsibilities of booking a gathering room at the nursing home (done), buying sandals (done), approving the menu, getting to the church on time and signing the checks at the end. Beautiful! Thanks Norm & Lisa! The down side of course is that this is one of those precious life events Judy will be missing. I'm sure the fact that Judy is missing will be brought up repeatedly at the communion dinner afterwards. For my part, I try to stay away from such remarks as I find no consolation in becoming mired in the obvious.
Another huge asset I can't overlook has been the unconditional support of our friends and neighbors in the community. When the babysitter I hired for winter break didn't show up one day, the first family I called went out of their way in accommodating the kids for the day. One of our other good friends picks my son up from school every Thursday after chess club and drops him off at the after school program. Yet another family has sent over meals to help give me a night off from cooking. They have extended a carte blanche for anything we might need. One thing is for sure, we're not alone in enjoying these seemingly simple yet invaluable favors. I'm certain every service spouse and their families benefit from this invisible support network. So much is made of schools, churches, VFW's, etc sending offerings of aid packages and letters of encouragement to our deployed service people overseas. I would argue the contributions of the folks that look after the families of those service people back home have largely been ignored. These friends, neighbors and family members are the army behind the army. They're the ones who really deserve a greater thanks than they've been given.
-- Phil Basinski
The weather was beautiful, in fact according to some of the soldiers after the ceremony it was the nicest weather they had ever had during their time at Ft. Bragg, NC. The Brigade had been in Ft. Bragg since January 20th and here it was now March 27th. They had spent just over 60 days on the ground in North Carolina preparing, training, and psyching up for the tour in Afghanistan that lay ahead of them. On this day of the ceremony, not all the Brigade was present, but a majority was. A couple small groups had already left on an advance party (Advon) and arrived in Afghanistan. They were there to help get things ready for the main body of the Brigade to arrive. In addition to the Advon not being here, all of the embedded training team members (the main effort of the Task Force Phoenix mission) were in
Ft. Riley, Kansas wrapping up their training and getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan also.
Embedded Training Team (ETT) members are the guys that operate in small teams (sometimes as small as one person) embedded with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police for the entire tour; training, mentoring, leading, sometimes disciplining and mostly fighting the enemy. This is what my team did when we were deployed to Afghanistan in 2006-2007, and now I was watching my Brigade go. The Task Force Headquarters which was training in Ft. Bragg are the soldiers that support the ETTs with all they need in order to do their job. They provide most of the support to the ETT teams, in addition to the support that Big Army gives to the ETTs which are scattered all over the huge country of Afghanistan.
So here I am on this beautiful day in Ft. Bragg, NC seeing many old friends and fellow soldiers I have trained with over the years. My wife insisted that I wear my uniform and I am glad that I did. I am a member of the Brigade and I was honored to wear my uniform there with them. I have badges and patches already that many of them will earn by the time they get back, but that was not the purpose of me wearing the uniform. It was to show them that I am one of them and even though I am not going over with them on this tour, I have been there and I made it back.
Besides seeing many fellow soldiers that I have trained with, deployed with, and shared good times with over the last eight years, there were also many soldiers here that I had once led as their company First Sergeant. These were boys that I had led for over four and a half years of which were some of the highest and lowest points of my military career. These were boys, I mean men, that I had taken to Puerto Rico, Germany, deployed to New York City with (during multiple code level Orange alerts and the 2004 RNC convention), put them on a plane for a one year tour in Iraq, stood there to shake their hand when they got off the plane from Iraq and stood side by side with them as we buried one of our own (Rest in Peace SGT David Roustum). These men may not have ever been my physical sons, but I cared for and treated every one of them that way. Even while I was deployed to Afghanistan and not serving as their First Sergeant anymore I was still emailing and instant messaging some of them on a continued basis to make sure they were doing ok and that everything was going well in both their military and personal lives. Seeing them off the first time as they were departing for Iraq was one of the toughest things I had ever done during my career. The Commander and I both fought and argued for the National Guard to take our whole company and not make us select 78 soldiers that would go. We wanted to lead them and take care of them, not someone else. Now I am trusting someone else to not only look after these “sons” of mine again, but also my own son.
In addition to being able to see all of those men that I treated like they were sons of mine, I was also there to see my own son. My own son, who less than a year earlier was waiting at the Buffalo airport with the rest of my family and many close friends holding a “Welcome Home Dad” sign. Now here I was watching him in a departure ceremony performing a pass and review in front of the Brigade Task Force Commander, The 42nd Division Commander, The Adjutant General of New York, The New York State Command Sergeant Major, and many other commanders from both New York and the Active Army. Many of these people I have known personally and are people that both my wife and I consider good friends. The pride that I felt could not be seen or imagined by anyone there. It was hidden behind my sunglasses and my camera as I was constantly snapping pictures. Not only pride, but also sadness, fear, and many other emotions were going through me. All of the men and women of the Task Force made me proud, but none like my own son. My own son who has grown up in the military for most of his life. I remember him sitting on the hood of our car in the parking lot of my unit in Ft. Hood TX as we got ready to board busses to deploy somewhere. I remember him playing with my night vision goggles, wearing my helmet, and even holding my M16 rifle. I remember him running next to me in a Battalion fun run during a family day when we were stationed in Ft. Richardson Alaska and then jumping out of the 34’ jump tower. I remember him running in to see me early on a Saturday morning and jumping on me excited that I was home after coming home after bed time from a long deployment. All of that, plus a ton of other memories were going through my head as I watched him standing there on that beautiful sunny day with 1000+ other soldiers of the 27th Brigade Combat Team.
The ceremony itself was done well and according to protocol, following the same script I have seen in many other ceremonies during my 21 year Army career. My very good friend, the BDE Command Sergeant Major, did a good job making sure everything was where it needed to be, that all the logistics were handled and that the ceremony went off without any noticeable hitches. They even had the 42nd Division band from New York there as part of the ceremony. This was a nice touch and showed that commitment and pride that the state of New York has in its largest combat maneuver unit. Of course the ceremony is truly an example of the pomp and circumstance that the Army still practices today. The soldiers have been trained, vetted, equipped and are ready to go. This was all a formality.
These soldiers are ready to go and get the job done and then get home. Lucky for them, the new National Guard policy is for soldiers to be deployed no more than one year, including train-up time. So these two months in NC count toward their whole year, which I like because that is two less months that they are not getting shot at. When I deployed, we had to do all 12 months in country, so our train-up time in the States did not count. For us, getting into Afghanistan meant that the countdown would finally start on us getting home. For the soldiers now, their countdown started back on January 17th. Even so, all of them are excited to get over there and do the job they are trained for. I can understand that as a soldier, but as a father I am glad that the last two months for my son were two months of him not being in harm’s way.
Going over ahead of my son has been a blessing and a curse in my eyes. A blessing in the fact that I was able to come back and share many experiences and real-world lessons with him as I did with over 800 soldiers of the Brigade that I helped train up to get ready. A curse, because I know better than anybody what he is getting into. That part of it angers me to the point that I have a hard time controlling my emotions sometimes. I know what the country was like when I got there, and what it was like when I left and I can say that I feel overall progress was minimal. I know the threats, dangers, and types of accidents that could happen over there and that is what scares me. But that is something that I have to suppress and deal with on my own and when the time is right.
I know this blog entry covers a lot more than just the ceremony, but I wanted to get some of this other information out there so it would help put things into perspective. I will be writing more soon about some of the other things we did over the weekend and the quality time my family got to spend with my son. Quality time that I know all of us will cherish for the next ten months.
-- Troy Steward
As the spouse of a National Guard soldier who just said goodbye again, I have often been told, “I can’t imagine what that must be like.” I usually just nod and smile, because I can’t find words that would begin to share the experience.
March 27th at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, we said our official goodbye to our soldiers from the 27th Brigade Combat Team and Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix VII. Most of these soldiers are from across New York State, and many are from our area. It would be logical to think that since North Carolina is quite a distance from New York, few would travel that far to attend a military Send-Off Ceremony two months after the soldiers left our area. I was thrilled to see that there were around 1,000 people in attendance in support of our soldiers.
That’s a lot bigger picture than we get in every day life. I think that’s so important. Our own goodbyes are so personal and intense. Every minute of the day is different when we’re apart, and the ache of separation has an intensity that is felt not week by week, but hour by hour and sometimes minute by minute.
The Send-Off Ceremony provided an opportunity to recognize the sacrifices we are all making together in this shared experience. It was an opportunity to be proud of the courage it takes to walk into this with your eyes open and the determination to do your part of the job well, so that the sacrifice is worth it and we grow stronger together. It was an opportunity to say to our soldiers, “We stand behind you. You are not alone.”
-- Susan Knowles
