And their brothers-in-arms weren’t there daily to put things in perspective. Their platoon sergeants couldn’t recommend military services specific to each individual because they couldn’t determine the needs. The guardsmen faced all of the issues of active-duty service members returning from deployment, but their squad leaders didn’t see them at each morning formation. One more seemingly small push-another drop-and the cup overflows.
National guard troops ambushed full#
Where calling in sick didn’t mean someone else died in your place.įor some, like DeLano, it became easier to call in sick than to add to an already full cup with everyday problems: a drop from an irritated boss, a drop from a virus that forced isolation, a drop from a spouse who needed to connect. Back home, the unit dissipated as members returned to their day jobs-the jobs where nobody understood, where camaraderie didn’t exist in quite the same way in cubicles, warehouses, or college classrooms.
When they returned home, they felt as if they were on their own. They felt belonging to a group of guys that were for each other. 1st Class Hercules Lobo, who had been a young sergeant when he deployed with the unit in 2011. “There’s nothing romantic in war,” says Sgt. The soldiers were trained to survive, but always while looking out for the next person. Leadership problems followed that stark entry to war: The unit worked with provincial reconstruction teams, which meant a constant rotation of new faces-faces of people who seemed to care little about a National Guard unit from Massachusetts, even though, by that point, reservists and Guard members had more than proven themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan. One platoon spent its first day in theater helping with the aftermath of a battle that left dozens wounded and dead. Some soldiers saw combat from the moment they arrived in country. The mission started out rough for the 182nd’s four companies, which were spread out across Afghanistan. As a journalist, I talked to dozens of soldiers as the losses continued after the unit returned home. From a distance, I saw pieces of the unit’s story from beginning to end. I met DeLano because my husband had worked with him as a civilian and later as a soldier. As they worked to keep their fellow fighters alive, they both fought to do the things that they hoped would keep them strong and resilient long after they left the battlefield. They both knew soldiers who had attempted to kill themselves, and still more who had thought about it. In the months and years that followed, Stewart and DeLano continued to see loss after loss of soldiers they’d deployed with to suicide. But within 12 months, at least four soldiers had taken their own lives. They completed their mission abroad, and Stewart brought 684 of them home. Photo courtesy of the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. The command system, out of Stewart’s control, left many of the men feeling as if their leadership didn’t care about them even as they fought for their lives in Afghanistan. Jorge Oliveira-a New Jersey guardsman attached to their unit- died in combat. Stewart’s first soldier, a member of DeLano’s platoon, died from cancer during the unit’s 12-month deployme nt. Loss had bound together Stewart and DeLano in the years after they returned home. He and Stewart had served together when they deployed with the 182nd Infantry Regiment to Afghanistan in 2011: Stewart as battalion commander, DeLano as a private. And DeLano, as an enlisted soldier, sometimes worked more intimately with soldiers in pain than a field-grade officer could. Stewart often helped his soldiers through adversity.
He had no reason not to believe what DeLano shared.
While the treatment kept him from drinking at the brewery, the food truck selling tacos wasn’t off limits, and neither were a few late-night episodes of Cobra Kai back at Stewart’s home just a town away.ĭeLano had driven more than an hour to reach Stewart-and with a clear purpose, Stewart thought. When he told his chain of command about his cancer treatment, he moved to an armory closer to where he lived. But because of the pandemic, DeLano spent most of the year working from home. “They said I’m going to make it through,” DeLano said.ĭeLano still worked for the Guard full time at an armory nearly two hours away from his Middleborough home. 1st Class James Lally, courtesy of the U.S. Both are assigned to the Massachusetts National Guard’s Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 182nd Infantry Regiment. Chris DeLano, center, and David Liu, right, perform maintenance on chainsaws used to cut fallen trees and clear roads after winter storm Nemo in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Feb.
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