Although I first set foot in Afghanistan on Sept. 22, 2017, the war became real to me earlier, on Aug. 2, when I heard that two paratroopers in my brigade had been killed.
That evening, I was in my barracks room talking with some buddies about our deployment when the night’s light mood was suddenly darkened by a text message. Without warning, a former platoon mate who had deployed earlier that summer told us that he had just survived a direct car bomb attack to his vehicle that same day. Although he assured us that he was OK, the tone of the message suggested that the other soldiers in the vehicle were not.
A few days later, the Pentagon confirmed our suspicions. Spc. Christopher Harris and Sgt. Jonathon Hunter had died from injuries sustained in that attack.
I never personally knew these men. The closest I got to either of them was a brief encounter with Jonathon as I was working a head-count detail at our battalion’s dining facility. I was in charge of registering each person coming in, and I distinctly remember seeing the uncommon name “Jonathon Hunter” pass by. As for Christopher, he was but one of the hundreds of nondescript, camouflaged-and-clean-shaven soldiers I passed each day on our brigade’s parade field without as much as a second thought.
Yet, despite such emotional distance between us, the news of their deaths still affected me. Of course, not to the heart-wrenching extent that it affected the soldiers in their company. Rather, for the first time in my short military career, I realized that the next time our brigade gathered together in formation, these two soldiers who used to stand among us would no longer be present.
Such a feeling is not unfounded. After all, the Army’s organizational structure encourages this sense of fraternity across its 480,000-person force. Like an address to a house, every soldier has his specific place within the Army’s ranks, from the division level down to the three-man fire team. Consequently, a soldier missing anywhere in the formation renders the whole incomplete — a bitter reality reflected in the Army’s memorial service to fallen soldiers: the “final roll call.”
In this ceremony, the soldier’s first sergeant assembles the company for a roll call much like those taken after battles in the Civil War. He then calls out the name and rank of a soldier present in that formation, who then quickly and forcefully replies, “Here, first sergeant!” He repeats this exchange with two other present soldiers before finally calling out the name and rank of the soldier everyone gathered to honor.
No reply. After a few seconds of silence, he repeats the call, now using the soldier’s first name.
“Staff Sgt. Javier Gutierrez!”
Again, no reply. After another few seconds of silence, he then calls out one last time using the soldier’s entire title.
“Staff Sgt. Javier Jaguar Gutierrez!”
With the third absence of a reply, and the playing of “Taps,” comes the painful acknowledgment of the soldier’s death. The formation is now incomplete.
After some reflection, however, I have come to think that the message of this ceremony is perhaps a bit narrow in its scope. While the death of a soldier is a deep scar that will never leave his or her comrades, with time, soldiers eventually “cover down” in the formation to fill its gaps. And as the unit’s soldiers come and go, the names of the fallen slowly fade from institutional memory. Yet, the effect of their deaths on families, friendships, and communities lingers on. After all, Christopher Harris learned that he was going to be a father just days before he was killed; his daughter was born the day that his unit returned from Afghanistan.
In nearly 20 years since the start of the global war on terrorism, ceremonies similar to the “final roll call” have been repeated thousands of times for the 7,036 lives lost throughout the military. Among these service members were fathers and mothers, pastors and professors, and even mayors and professional athletes.
The “final roll call” reminds us that the loss of a service member leaves the entire formation incomplete. Memorial Day, in turn, reminds us that our country will never again be whole with their absence.
Kevin Petersen is a student at Columbia University’s School of General Studies and a U.S. Army veteran of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan.
