'Fighting 69th' learn the ways of war at Fort Drum
As John Byrne lay sprawled on an upstate New York roadside, the National Guard sergeant from Smithtown assessed the armed men pointing assault rifles at his head.
"They did good," said Byrne, 33, of the New York National Guard's 69th Infantry Regiment. "This is what keeps me in the military. Passing the word, teaching them the mistakes you've made in Afghanistan, keeping them safe."
Byrne and more than 300 members of the "Fighting 69th" spent part of August training at Fort Drum, N.Y., the home of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division. The base is a giant tract of brush and forest that stretches over more than 100,000 acres in the Adirondacks.
The soldiers trained amid the crackle of small arms, the booming of big guns and the drone of helicopters as they began preparations to return to Afghanistan sometime in the next 18 months. Many of the soldiers served with the 69th in Afghanistan less than two years ago; for others who joined the unit recently, this was their first on-base training for what lies ahead.
Locals train for battle
Byrne and the others from Long Island traded comfortable beds, indoor toilets, home-cooked meals and daily showers for cramped tents, trips to latrines, heat-and-eat rations and day after day of hot, gritty, fly-buzzing weather. Regular bathing was an unavailable luxury.
As is the spirit of the National Guard, all are ordinary citizens - warehousemen, auto mechanics, truck drivers, and others from various trades and professions. They joined to serve their country. For these summer weeks, they came together to learn the ways of war.
They shot machine guns at moving targets. They fired mortar shells that exploded in the distance. They burst into mocked-up buildings, weapons ready. They practiced the grim task of recovering convoy vehicles that had been hit by roadside bombs.
Sgt. James Cavan, 26, a Hicksville staff sergeant who already has done three combat tours, organized the mock ambush that led to Byrne's capture. About a dozen men under his command - their rifles loaded with blank ammunition - had secreted themselves in a broad field of goldenrod. When Byrne and another soldier walked into their trap, the bucolic silence was pierced by the sound of gunfire.
"We try to bring our experience from previous deployments to instruct them on what to expect," said Cavan, who under different military units served in Afghanistan in 2003, Iraq in 2004-05 and Afghanistan again in 2007-08. "It seems basic, but it is important to know how to operate as a cohesive unit."
Several soldiers already have formed deep bonds while the 69th was at war during earlier deployments.
Spc. Edmond Dost grew up in Smithtown and served in Afghanistan under Sgt. Eric Farina of East Northport. At Fort Drum, Farina and Dost - superior and subordinate - slept in equally uncomfortable pup tents in the same mosquito-strafed field.
Dost, 33, said while in Afghanistan, Farina, 41, had often gone out of his way to help subordinates serving guard duty. A father of three, the noncommissioned officer would stand in for younger soldiers who needed a break, risking himself instead.
The gestures built a bond of mutual respect. "The fact is, in war, everyone has to rely on one another," Dost said. "He was the best NCO we had."
Earning a home
Although the Obama administration plans to begin reducing troop levels next year, U.S. forces likely will have to remain for years to come.
The training exercises - held amid Fort Drum's 25 square miles of swamps, brush and pine forests - drew a cross section of local soldiers whose stories tell of the deep roots the National Guard has on Long Island.
One of the drills involved three brothers - Pvt. Kenardo Campbell, 23; Pvt. Jerome Campbell, 25; and Pvt. Garth Reid, 35. Immigrants from Jamaica, the three live in Wyandanch, work at a Farmingdale warehouse, and all have applied for U.S. citizenship under the military's expedited naturalization program.
They serve as drivers based at the Freeport armory. But at Fort Drum, the trio spent part of their time manning a mortar, lobbing 38-pound shells that exploded more than two miles in the distance.
"I've always wanted to be a U.S. citizen," said Jerome Campbell, who immigrated in 2006, joined the Guard in April 2009, and applied for citizenship two months later. "Now I feel I've earned it."
Byrne said that on his first tour of duty in Afghanistan a buddy he shared a tent with was killed during a firefight. He and a dozen American troops spent months embedded with Afghan police officers, who Byrne said sometimes abandoned them during firefights with the Taliban.
"You'd say, 'Hey . . . I just gave you my last Coke. Stay with us and fight.' "
His impressions during the training at Fort Drum - the sight of helmeted troops crouching in the brush, the smell of gunpowder wafting in the afternoon's heat - reminded Byrne of the bonds he formed with fellow Americans and several of the Afghans with whom he served.
"Doing these drills, the emotions come running back," he said. "Do I really want to do that again? Yes. You want your buddies to stay alive."
