My Country To Defend

A.E. Dimond
Format: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook all available
Paperback Price: $21.95
Published: iUniverse, 2004
All formats include a 19-page photo gallery
ISBN: 0-595-33484-9

 
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IN THEIR OWN WORDS

A word of introduction from A.E. Dimond: The sum really can be greater than the parts and that, I think, accounts for the tremendous chemistry and brotherhood the Outlaw Platoon carried into battle in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. But it's still the "parts" that tug at my heart  these men I call friends who will always be both heroic and humanly plausible. Below, I offer you excerpts from the book that seem to capture the essence of each man...and one small moment that spoke to a friendship I will treasure forever. It's the individual "parts" I think about with so many troops still fighting for a dream in Iraq. It's the "parts" that bring a smile to our faces and sustain us during the most trying times.

Hear A.E. Dimond speak on My Country to Defend

Click on each soldier's photo or name for a bio and A.E Dimond's most memorable moments with them.

CPT BRIAN JOHNSON
   Johnson would turn down a Purple Heart someday, feeling the wound didn't merit the recognition. The injury didn't begin to touch the life-altering wounds of someone like Bob Dole, and Johnson still had all of his limbs. He didn't begrudge other men for their tokens of a little shrapnel  it just wasn't his cup of tea.

Click here for video of CPT Brian Johnson

SSG CHAD URQUHART
   The rear hatch of the Bradley was suddenly descending, and Urquhart exposed himself first. He jumped on the ramp, midway through its fall, with a few precious seconds to get situational awareness. He rode the ramp down and his eyes adjusted quickly to the first harsh assault of daylight. The sun was setting in his eyes.
   It was a dizzying instinct Diego had on the fly.

There were six Iraqi soldiers, hands in the air, in a mortar position.

SSG RONALD TOLBERT

   It was as if Tolbert had turned the 25mm into a machine gun as he razed the enemy's uprising. He fired for so long, in such ferocious continuation  it seemed he melted the barrel of the main gun. It personified the anger, the horrific grief and gave voice to the anguish of the men. It wasn't just that he saved some lives that day. It was that Tolbert was hurting, too.
   Johnson felt a painful catch as he listened to the stammer. He closed his eyes once to the perpetual drone. There were thunderous claps in that massive torrent  the bleeding out of Tolbert's heart.

Click here for video of SSG Ronald Tolbert

SGT EUGENE WILLIAMS
   "We made it this far!" Johnson ordered a death charge. They would join the 82nd Airborne and Brooks rolled out the M240 machine gun for cover as Williams did a manual breach of the Concertina wire.
   In a training exercise, as intense as it was, Brooks had the luxury of awe. There was no demolition equipment, just the raw strength and agility as Williams infiltrated the labyrinth. He snipped and he manhandled and he stretched and crab-crawled. Brooks lit up the enemy before him. It was virtual triumph, a glorious blaze, a swell to be conquering and alive.

Click here for audio of Brandy Williams,

SGT ANTHONY FARINA

   Diego's jaw tightened in the whirlwind of thought. What if he killed someone, innocent? To fire that weapon was to somehow play God, to make an eternal kind of judgment.
   Farina had had the same introspection once, and he had had to weigh it in the balance of his faith. As a young boy, he had always walked to the sacred Arch Abbey and visited with the Catholic priests there. Farina was a churchgoer, finding something healing and straightening each time he attended Mass. It was the richness of the ceremony and the sameness of worship that made him feel right with God. Seeing the Savior as he hung on the cross, he had always sensed a renewal of power  God had made him and God could fix him. Together, they could work anything out.

Click here for video of SGT Anthony Farina

  They needed a diversion, to forget for a moment just where they were and why... Rendon offered the bag from his ProMask kit that normally held his gas mask. Three other soldiers did the same, laying them in a diamond-shape on a flat. They found a discarded 2x4, and Diego made a baseball out of MRE packaging and strapping tape.
   "Hey batta, batta," Cavazos heckled Sawicki just before he took a swing with the wood.
   The baseball lobbed crazily, its poor aerodynamics landing it short of the base.
   "Stttttrrrriiiiiikkkkkeeee.one!"
   "That's not a strike! I didn't swing! It didn't even get to the plate!"
   "I had to call something." Ronquillo was also the catcher. "Keep your eye on the      ball."

Click here for video of SGT Patrick Sawicki

CPL MICHAEL CURTIN
   The platoon was short on tents, and Curtin volunteered to take the outside post. If there were trenches to be dug, then he picked up a shovel; that was Curtin at his best. Brooks couldn't leave him to such solitary misery so he laid his sleeping bag beside him. They were pelted by the wind, and the sand blew over them in a scathing blizzard of dispute. They became buried in small dunes, and Curtin tried to poke his head out - it was a carbon dioxide trap in the nylon. The raindrops that came next fell with such weight; they were like lead and Brooks began to laugh.
   "It only rains here like four times a year, doesn't it?"
   "Let's just stick it out. See how much worse it can get..."

   It came in sheets. "Aaaaaggghhh!" Brooks yelled once, and it had that distinct edge: it's a good pain.

Click here for audio of Joan Curtin, mother of fallen soldier CPL Michael Curtin


CPL ADRIAN CAVAZOS
   Cavazos had met an Army cook once upon a time and they'd hotly debated the merits of their prospective roles in the field.
   "You're messed up."
   "No, you're messed up," Cavazos had shot back, indignant.
   "You're gonna take a bullet  get killed out there. I got me a safe job right here."
   "Don't go cutting yourself, peeling potatoes, homeboy."
   "Whatever. At least I'll be alive."
   "Do they give out medals  for serving up this crap?"
   "No. They don't give out no body bags neither..."
   "Whatever, kitchen boy."
   "Whatever, bullet magnet."
   "I'll beat you down. Right here."

Click here for video of CPL Adrian Cavazos


SPC ROBBIE BROOKS

   Brooks said little, cleaning only one of two M-240 B machine guns found in the platoon  "the hog" as he liked to call it. The weapon could be belt fed, fully automatic, and, even empty, weighed over twenty-two pounds. It was a flattering burden, that beast of firepower that Brooks had to constantly shoulder. He raised it to his chest, as if curling a twig, and Cavazos admired the strength.
   In the past, at PT, one could lay hold on certain personality traits by the way each man ran the six-mile. Cavazos was prone to take the lead, in quick bursts and sprints and then trot and then sprint again. Brooks always stayed behind, comfortable in the pack, but he was as steady and as disciplined as a stopwatch. He usually caught Cavazos, near the end, in a tortoise and hare kind of outlast. He never stopped or winced or seemed to be winded in that perpetual drumbeat of motion.

Click here for a special tribute to SPC Robbie Brooks

SPC PAULO RONQUILLO

   "Stop toying with me, Rincon." It was late in the game and Ronquillo moved a pawn from its opening position. It was a strategy meant to be equally exasperating because Diego had won long ago. "Just call checkmate. Get the thing over with." His white pawn could neither advance nor capture Diego's bishop. He couldn't interpose and Diego was dancing adeptly, hovering but not checking Ronquillo's king.
   Diego was pleased with himself. Dart in and out. Wait for the more glorious kill. Diego wouldn't be satisfied until he'd captured all the pieces, until every pawn was a prisoner of war.
   "He stinks at chess. I don't see how he wins all the time. He doesn't even understand the rules."
   Johnson smiled dryly. "That's like saying the Lakers stink. But, hey, somehow they win."

   Diego saw Rendon fifty meters away, tucking some notebook paper far beneath his chemical suit. The motion was noted as a trace of white in the thermal that watched over him throughout the night. The men's feet were prominent, the hottest part of their bodies because they were overworked and marched to near radiance. They were just a few lines that Rendon had penned in Spanish, the kind he could truly never send.
   The Iraqis raise the white flag, Mom. They shoot at us. They kill our men. And then they raise a white flag...
   If I make it through this war with this rule, Mom, I tell you, I'm not going to be the same man.

Click here for video of PFC Erwin Rendon

SPC ALLEN BLACK

     “Load up.” It was said so matter-of-factly, Johnson could have just as well said, “have a nice day.” They crawled into the Bradleys and were plunged into an abyss again of the unknown and the unseeing of their confines. The simple pattern they relied on, their only sure habit, resembled a kitchen table where every family member knew his place.

   “Close your legs,” Cavazos demanded of Black, who spread his legs wider to spite him. “I’m serious, man, you’re in my space.” Black became nearly spread-eagled.

   “Ouch!”

   “I told you, man. My space. Your space. There’s an imaginary line…right…here.”

   “If there’s some kinda direction there…I…can’t…see…you,” Black’s taunt was short-lived in his weariness.

Click here for video of PFC Allen Black

PFC MICHAEL RUSSEL CREIGHTON-WELDON

  Creighton remained completely stone-faced. He took one last, long drag then snuffed the butt with his foot, grinding it excessively for Cavazos' benefit. Cavazos eyed the butt, tried to keep the conversation going, a sly smile playing at his mouth.
   "Naemi's father was military. He's a Gulf War veteran. Retired First Sergeant Moses Mendoza, Jr."
   "Did you join the Army to impress the guy?"
   "No, I just wanted a good start for both of us."
   There was another stilted pause.
   "Hey, why'd you join, Creighton?" Cavazos lobbed it to him, easy.
   "I wanted to make my parents proud." He lit another cigarette and turned his back on Cavazos.
   Creighton was obnoxious, and Cavazos kind of liked that, the strange bedfellows of

war.

Click here for audio of Russel Creighton, father of fallen soldier

PFC Michael Russel Creighton-Weldon