One of the Army values is respect. It’s important. I’m careful to avoid allowing my column to disparage someone’s military service. Everyone who has served deserves some measure of respect. But even among soldiers, some perform better than others, or serve at peak levels at different times. I need to tell you about one Army Sergeant First Class who had a fine career, but one that perhaps should have been wrapped up by the time he served with my fellow soldiers and me in the Afghanistan war.
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This staff sergeant looked exactly like then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. We’ll call him SFC Feldsrum. In 2005, he served with Civil Affairs on our remote Afghanistan outpost. He was the only Vietnam veteran I ever encountered in the service. He had been enlisted forever, and he’d even been a weapons adviser on several Hollywood movies.
SFC Feldsrum was a good guy. I was grateful for his sincere dedication to the important CA mission to help good Afghans rebuild their country. In one mission brief, he described how he and other CA soldiers would meet with the elders in a certain village, and after they were done, my fellow soldiers and I, covering security, could distribute toys and candy to the Afghan children.
This toy distribution was the best part of my service in Afghanistan. But there was a problem.
“Wait,” I said. “I thought we had orders for no more toy drops.”
SFC Feldsrum was immediately upset. “What? When was this put out?” He fidgeted, almost in panic. “Where did that order come from?”
I realized in that moment that the order came from my own safety-conscious and slightly paranoid squad leader, because he believed we put ourselves at risk of Taliban attack during the toy distributions. I met the gaze of my guys and said, “Um … the order comes … from … SatCom Six.” SatCom Six became my squad’s code name for our squad leader for the rest of the deployment.
Feldsrum’s tendency to panic was a real problem. For months of our deployment, we didn’t see a drop of rain. But a few winter storms made driving in the Afghan desert treacherous. Our Humvees often became stuck.
On one such occasion, we stepped out of the vehicle to set a security perimeter and work on freeing the Humvee from the mud.
“Oh, we’re stuck!” Feldsrum shouted. “Call in to the base! Have them send a truck! Have them send a Chinook helicopter to pull us out!” Total panic.
“Sergeant!” I shouted. “Just wait a second. We haven’t even pulled the shovels out. We haven’t even tried to free the Humvee yet!”
This was gross insubordination. I normally hate that kind of disrespect for the chain of command, especially toward a man with such a long service record. But he’d panicked like that before. And it would have taken the better part of a day for our base to send help. We freed the Humvee in about 20 minutes.
Another mission concerned our delivery of some relief supplies to a warehouse in the middle of town. There was some concern about the security of the building.
“We can’t leave the materials here!” SFC Feldsrum said. “It’ll all be stolen.” He paced nervously and continued: “But our orders are to deliver the supplies! But what about theft? Should we leave the stuff here? Should we search for a different building? What do we do?”
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I approached two sergeants. “I know Feldsrum’s in charge and outranks everyone, but one of you will have to take over,” I said. “Feldsrum’s freaking out. He won’t make a decision. We’ll be here all night.”
I felt bad saying this. I was a mere corporal. Feldsrum had served for decades. He was a great guy. I was happy he was getting one last mission, so he could score a great retirement. But as frustrating as it was, we’d have to give him extra help to get through the deployment. Soldiers have to back their fellow soldiers.
Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.
