By Gregory Glenn Niemuth, for the Chippewa Valley Post
(This is the fourth and final part of the series recounting James Myren’s experiences during his year-long tour of duty in Afghanistan. The first article in this series covered the time from his Memorial High School graduation to his arrival in Afghanistan. The second and third articles dealt with Myren’s recollections of the difficulties and dangers of establishing and defending a Combat Outpost (COP) in an exposed forward position.)
The arrival of snow in December of 2006 was welcomed, since “nothing much happened” until spring.
James Myren and his platoon were temporarily stationed away from the COP at the end of February when rain washed out the road, and were billeted in the regional sub-governor’s house. The sub-governor had long since departed, but someone still showed up to tend the rose bushes, Myren said.
“We were stranded there and wound up spending the rest of our deployment there,” he said. “[It was] the same thing over and over again. Go out on a mission, get lit up, come back…get up in the morning and do it all over again.”
Convoy attacked
In early May the road from Forward Operating Base (FOB) Bostick at Naray was unblocked. Another resupply convoy was coming “loaded down with water, food, mail – stuff like that. [It was] the first resupply by road in months,” Myren said.
The convoy also included a number of soldiers in the Afghan National Army (ANA). About a kilometer or two from the COP they came into contact with insurgents.
“We were listening to all the chatter on the radio so we knew what was going on. A couple of guys were hit. They came flying through the gate,” Myren said.
The second truck had a door blown off; “you knew something bad had happened,” he continued. “There was a Marine running the show for the ANA, showing them how the American military operated…the ANA stayed and fought.”
Myren recalled helping a soldier who had been shot in the neck.
“I was in the aid station with him trying to control the bleeding – both of my hands on his neck, trying to stop the bleeding. Finally, our medic put some QuickClot in there and stopped the bleeding,” he said.
A recovery operation
Myren’s voice slowed as he remembered that day. After doing a headcount, “we got in our trucks and we headed up to do a recovery.
“By the time we got to that place there was a truck in the river, there was – – just trucks stopped. We stacked bodies in trucks…,” Myren said.
Eleven ANA soldiers were killed in the firefight. They were coming to replace ANA soldiers already stationed at COP Keating.
Two Apache helicopters provided temporary cover for the cleanup efforts, but left to refuel.
“That’s when my gunner got shot in the arm. I heard a scream and I didn’t know what the hell was going on. There was just one single shot right in the arm. And then all of a sudden, he is down in the truck bleeding,” Myren said.
His sergeant yelled, “Get the f*** outta here and that’s when my window shattered – it had to have been sniper fire.
‘Then all hell broke out again’
“I was driving,” Myren said. “Then all hell broke out again.”
The unit was pinned down, and “spent the rest of the afternoon there trying to kill as many of them as possible…. When the Apaches returned and “lit up the mountainside, we were able to get out of there. We had guys on the ground still fighting. They were hiding behind rocks and whatever cover they could find,” Myren said.
They finally made it back to COP Keating without any more fatalities. A Black Hawk arrived to pick up the injured – the soldier shot in the neck and three others. The pilot said they would be back for the ANA casualties.
“We had finally gotten bodies into body bags. They said it was too hot” to come back in, Myren recalled “We sat there with 11 body bags in two rows which would not get picked up until the next bird – which would not come in until tomorrow.
“We sat guard over the ANA soldiers, over the bodies, and watched them until they were out of there the next morning.”
Deployment ends
Myren’s deployment ended a couple of weeks later. “The 503rd infantry from Italy I think, took our place. That was May of ’07.”
The return to the States started with an overnight at Camp Bostick. From there Myren’s unit was flown to Kandahar for “a week, week and a half, where they basically shook down all of our equipment to make sure we were not taking any war trophies.”
According to Myren, “We had a couple of quick classes about, this is not how you’re supposed to act when you get back to America, and this is how you’re supposed to act. Kind of like reintegration classes.”
A flight from Kandahar took them to the now-closed Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. Two days later, they were homeward bound with a short layover in Germany to refuel. Myren smiled as he recalled the trip.
‘. . . the biggest breath of air. . . .’
“We made it back two weeks after we left [COP Keating]. That was the biggest breath of air I have ever taken in my life – stepping down onto the tarmac at Fort Drum.”
After medical testing and more mandatory classes at Fort Drum, Myren and his fellow cavalrymen were able to “take our 30 days of furlough and come home.” The 2005 Memorial graduate who joined the U.S. Army Cavalry “to feel like a man” returned to the United States two years later, very much a man among men.
All photos accompanying this article were provided by James Myren.
Note: Gregory Glenn Niemuth taught English and journalism at Memorial High School until his retirement last year. Myren was a student in his English 12 class in 2004-05. Niemuth recalled that he sent a large box of paperback books to Myren while his former student was stationed at COP Keating, but “I’ve never asked him if he did much reading there. . . .”
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