Fifteen years ago this winter, I was activated for the war in Afghanistan. I think about my time there every single day, and how it was typified by one experience we often don’t hear much about or see on big-screen portrayals of soldiering.
In December 1998, I enlisted in the Iowa Army National Guard for college money. I was not particularly interested in soldiering. The only weapon I’d ever fired was a Red Ryder BB gun. I was an English major, an aspiring writer. Not, so I thought, a war fighter.
I lacked others’ zeal for soldiering and prayed often for help getting through my Army time.
As early as basic training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in the summer of ’99, I prayed fervently for help with my M16 on the firing range. I couldn’t shoot straight, and even after repeated attempts, I still could not zero the weapon’s sights. That is, I struggled to fire a tight shot group consistently in the center of a paper target in order to adjust the weapon’s sights accurately. As most trainees zeroed and moved on to shooting ranges, I joined a handful of others who struggled to catch up. Prolonged failure meant recycling, repeating a segment of training, adding almost an additional month to the basic training ordeal. Recycling would force me to miss a semester of college, and prolong my difficult separation from the wonderful woman who would become my wife.
Before each successive zeroing attempt, I intoned: Lord, PLEASE let me shoot right so I can get home. After each failure: Why, God!? Why won’t you help me zero this rifle? They’re going to recycle me. Please help me. I have to move on to get out of here.
Although trainees were always tired, I struggled to sleep, I was so worried about the firing range. “You are running out of time,” a firm-but-fair drill sergeant said one day on the remedial zeroing range.
I dropped to the prone position on the firing line and took a deep breath. Lord, if you want me to be recycled, that’s OK. Only please help me accept it. Thy will be done. Then I controlled my breath, eased on the trigger, and fired.
“Reedy!” the drill sergeant shouted a few minutes later. The man almost smiled. “Finally zeroed! Get over to the real range!”
I had practiced shooting the pop-up plastic targets on the weapon qualification range before, each time desperately praying for help, each time being reprimanded by drill sergeants for my failure. Practicing that afternoon, my fear was replaced by gratitude. My shooting transformed.
Trigger pull, target drop. Again and again and again. I’d become one with my rifle and couldn’t miss. I felt a kind of power I’d never known before and would never experience off the range until years later during a terrible day in Afghanistan.
Before qualification, I again offered a deferential prayer, and again shot very well, certain I would easily pass even before the firing was complete.
“Reedy!” shouted our meanest drill sergeant, upon hearing about my respectable score. “What changed for you?”
I shrugged and simply pointed straight up. I had discovered a surrendering faith, upon which I would often depend throughout my service, especially during my time in the war. Eventually, through threats and encouragement from inspired leadership, I learned my job well. I could fire my weapon accurately, safely and effectively rig explosives, and endure. I was never an expert soldier, nor particularly brave. I just prayed and did my job.
And in the course of my duties I experienced things I never imagined I would, stories I am exceedingly grateful to have and that, I believe, more would-be soldiers ought to hear.
Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a year’s tour of duty in Afghanistan.
