10th Mountain Division, Light Infantry

I enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1991. My Basic Combat Training was completed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Bliss, Texas (both in 1992). My permanent duty station was Fort Drum, New York...the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, Light Infantry. A lot of our training specialized in Extreme Cold Weather Survival/Mountain Warfare.


I served in Operation Restore Hope, Somalia, Africa from January 1993 through May 1993, as a Doorgunner on a Blackhawk Helicopter. Our main flightline was in the village of Bale Dogle, Somalia, although I spent a lot of time in Kismaayo, Somalia, on QRF status (Quick Reaction Force) as well as the capital city of Mogadishu.

One thing is for certain: there is no place on Earth quite like the United States of America. When you’re safely back home, it’s easy to forget that you enjoy the highest standard of living in the world. But it’s true. You also enjoy a degree of personal freedom that is unprecedented in modern history. Other nations, especially in the western world, often do a halfway decent job of imitating the rights that Americans enjoy. But in America, liberty is part of the very fabric of our society. Nowhere else on the globe are such ideas as those embodied in our Bill of Rights held in such high esteem. In other nations, rights are granted by the government, with the implied caveat that they can be taken away. In America, such rights are considered to be, in the words of Thomas Jefferson “endowed by (the) Creator” and “inalienable.”

These rights and freedoms have resulted in an explosion of American culture. Yes, every nation on Earth has its own unique culture—but in many nations, these traditions merely serve as a way to cling to the past. Ours is the culture of freedom, the culture of today and the future. It is spreading all over the world, faster than anyone in previous generations could possibly have imagined.

Those tyrants who cling to power by keeping their subjects ignorant and submissive fear this spreading culture. It is slowly but surely consuming their backward fiefdoms, infecting their people. The reactionaries cannot stop the contagion. They lash out in fear and ignorance. They call on their youth to sacrifice themselves in order to roll back the rising tide of freedom.

They will inevitably fail. But the danger that they pose should not be dismissed.

Our freedom comes with a price—someone has to stand up to the thugs and tyrants, those evil men whose only response to that which they cannot understand is violence and terror. We cannot afford to be complacent, nor can we rely on appeasement or diplomacy to solve all of our problems. When the time comes, someone has to be prepared to pick up a weapon and take the fight to the enemy. Wars are not won by going on the defensive.

This time it was my turn.

So here I am, in the Horn of Africa, the worst sort of hell imaginable. But a handful of missed holidays and birthdays is a small price to pay for freedom. Others have given so much more.