Bread

The first beer went down fast like a sprint. The next was drawn out like a long walk home, where the time seems not to matter. There was distance between sips of the lager, and that space was filled with reveries of dragons slain on Virgil Mountain.

Joe Fenty, Sergeant Major Dave “Chief” Martel, and I had just finished the Virgil Mountain Madness Trail Run and we were re-hydrating. The race was 18.6 miles of gnarly single-track trail that switch-backed its way through the rocky landscape of Kennedy State Forest near the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. We were stationed about 45 miles farther north at Fort Drum. Virgil Mountain had become a tradition for us as we prepared for the long winter ahead, when snowshoeing and cross-country skiing would replace running as our aerobic outlet.

No one came out of Virgil unscathed. Joe and Dave had bloodied knees, and both my right knee and elbow were skinned up and still bleeding. After the race, we sat on a large log that served as our post-race dining table. As we straddled the fallen timber with our plates of bagels and cream cheese and potato chips, we inhaled the carbohydrates and salt we’d lost during the grueling run. We washed it all down with Yuengling beer, our favorite replenishment fluid. Worn down from nearly three hours on the mountain, we felt life and energy flood back into our bloodstreams.

We were on the edge of a campground that served as the race headquarters. Most people mingled near the food table and scoring tent; others were already moving to their cars to drive home. With soldiers’ eyes, we surveyed the terrain and peered deep into the forest. We loved running trails; jumping over rocks and into creeks and scurrying through thickets kept us closer, more keenly aware of terrain’s crannies and cracks. We were light infantryman in the historic 10th Mountain Division—this was fun for us.

Joe bit into his bagel. He chewed slowly, then told me, “You ran like you were possessed today. I thought for sure you would flame out before the last climb.” What Joe didn’t know was that I did flame out, but I’d made sure I put as much distance between him and me before the 1000-foot ascent in the last miles of the race. I took a long pull on my beer and placed the bottle on the ground between my running shoes. The thick brown mud from the trails was starting to dry and camouflage the blue and gray of my Nikes. Blood trickled down my calf and soaked into my socks.

“Dude, there was no way I was going to let you do to me what happened last year,” I said. The year before, Joe destroyed me; he was so strong on the climbs. I was nowhere near him at the end. Joe smiled, tipped his beer in a salute, and said, “Next time.”

We ran Virgil on the 21st of August 2001. Less than three weeks later, Al Qaeda would fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Joe and I were coming out of the post gym and saw the first plane strike the towers on a TV at the front desk. Joe’s face went pale.

“I can’t believe this,” I said.

“My mom works there,” Joe said.

We found out later that his mom was all right—but the war was getting personal, and fast.

The war spread from U.S. soil to Afghanistan, then Iraq. It became a global War on Terror and then a global War on Terrorism. Five years passed. Joe and I were both selected to command battalions; we stayed in contact throughout our assignments. Joe returned to Fort Drum to command the 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment.

In early 2006, Joe deployed with his squadron to Afghanistan. I went to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, to command 2-39 Infantry, a basic training battalion. I vowed that I would do my best to train the soldiers that Joe would lead in combat. 

Not long into Joe’s deployment, my office phone rang. I picked up and immediately recognized the voice, even with the static and crackle of an overseas line. It was Joe calling from Afghanistan. He said he only had a couple minutes to talk, but he wanted to tell me something.

“Guess what, Fred?” my friend said.

“What?”

“Kristen is pregnant. Can you believe it?” he told me. I sat back in my chair, put my hands behind my head, and rubbed the sharp stubble of my high-and-tight haircut. It was hard to believe; Joe and his wife, Kristen, were both 41 years old. They never mentioned wanting children.

I barely recognized Joe’s voice on the other end of the phone; his tone, normally an even pitch (some called him aloof) had a different cadence that day. Joe Fenty— the stoic, hardened warrior—was giddy. I imagined him high-stepping around his room, slapping high-fives and pumping his fists as if he’d just scored the winning touchdown of life. Anyone who knew Joe would find the very thought of him showing emotion (let alone doing a kabuki dance) strange and hilarious. Even through the phone I could see his smile, red cheeks, and bright eyes. He would tilt his head slightly back when he grinned as if he wanted everyone to see his happiness, that human feeling he held in reserve until it really meant something.

Kristen gave birth to their daughter, Lauren, on April 7. Joe was able to call the hospital shortly after the birth and listen to his baby girl breathe and giggle. 

On the 5th of May, Joe was killed with nine other soldiers in a helicopter crash east of Abad, Afghanistan in Kunar Province. Evacuation of the dead was made impossible by the weather. Instead of waiting for the storm to pass, his soldiers chose to climb the mountain to bring Joe and the others down.

I remember getting the email that Joe had been killed. The blood drained from my face and head, rushing away to salve my breaking heart. I read it aloud at barely a whisper. LTC Joe Fenty leaves behind Kristen, his wife of 19 years, and their 28-day-old daughter, Lauren.

Joe was not the first friend I had lost in the war, but he was the one I loved and missed the most. A couple days later, I got a phone call from LTC Chris Gibson, a mutual friend. He asked if I was interested in being a pallbearer at Joe’s funeral at Arlington. My only question was when I needed to be there.

A number of familiar faces gathered in the chapel at Arlington to carry the casket. There was me; there was Sergeant Major Dave Martel, who ran with Joe and I on Virgil Mountain; there was LTC Eric Kurilla, LTC Gibson, and LTC Chris Cavoli. Chris had escorted Joe’s body back from Afghanistan, where they commanded together, and he would give Joe’s eulogy.

I did not envy Chris as he approached the stage. How does one do justice to Joe Fenty with words? I thought. But over the next several minutes, Chris answered that question with the best, most elegant appraisal of a well-lived life that I have ever heard.

He said, “Where my father’s family is from in Italy, there is a saying about bread that speaks not only of the food, but also of a person’s nature. If a man is of sterling character, he is said to be buono come il pane. It means good as bread. Bread nourishes the body and the soul. Bread is life. Bread is good.” Chris placed his hands firmly on the podium, his knuckles tense and white and still, and he surveyed the audience for a moment. He paused, then said: “Joe Fenty is bread.”

As honorary pallbearers, we followed Joe’s flag-draped casket to his final resting place. A team of Old Guard soldiers, whose sole purpose is to bring honor to the fallen, escorted Joe. My friend was carried on a caisson pulled by six horses, majestic animals that looked worthy to pull the carriages of kings. The silence of the walk was broken only by the cadence of the horses’ clip clop along the road; we walked slowly, almost at half-step, on the immaculate roads of Arlington, floating like ghosts amidst a sea of white headstones. The graves of our country’s warriors surrounded us on every side.

 When we arrived at the gravesite, the team of Old Guard soldiers retrieved the casket from the caisson and sat it down by Joe’s grave. The reverent, almost robotic precision of the Old Guard soldiers was mesmerizing; I could almost become distracted as they secured the flag and stretched it tautly over the casket. Old Glory hovered inches above Joe like a flying carpet that would carry him to heaven.

A chaplain performed the service and gave the benediction. Those who were seated were asked to rise. My head was fixed straight forward towards the casket, but my eyes were on Kristen, who held Lauren in her arms.

Even in that cemetery, a place that honors our nation’s noblest heroes, I could imagine no one braver than Kristen Fenty.

An order was given to present arms. Those of us in uniform rendered a salute. A squad of seven soldiers fired their weapons in three successive volleys. A bugle played taps. Two soldiers folded the flag in 13 sharp, precise steps, then handed it to an officer who marched to Kristen. Kristen passed Lauren to a woman next to her.

The officer positioned himself in front of Kristen. He bent slightly, holding the flag with one hand on top and the other below. He held it in front of him, stretched his arms slightly, and passing it to Kristen. In a steady voice, he whispered:

“Ma’am, this flag is presented on behalf of a grateful nation as an expression of appreciation for the honorable and faithful service rendered by your loved one.”

The ceremony ended. We gathered in groups, not wanting to leave. I was talking to Chris Cavoli when I noticed Kristen rise from her chair with Lauren in her arms. Alone, she walked over to the gravesite. She stood at the head of Joe’s casket. Kristen lowered her daughter until she almost touched the coffin’s closed top, and Lauren seemed to move the rest of the way on her own. The baby kissed her father for the first and last time.

I deployed to Iraq two months later.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

General Petraeus, commander of all military forces in Iraq at the time, was fond of saying: “You cannot kill your way out of an insurgency.” In counterinsurgencies like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, the focus is the population, average citizens— and their perception of whether life is better with the insurgents or with the institutional government. If they determine life is better with the insurgents, the counterinsurgents will lose the war even if they win every skirmish.

It’s like when a U.S. general said to his North Vietnamese counterpart: we beat you in every single battle. The North Vietnamese general replied, “That is true. But it is also irrelevant.” North Vietnam prevailed in the conflict because the actions of the United States didn’t improve life in the villages and hamlets. In many ways, we made things far, far worse.

It was the day after our attack of Baqubah in July 2007. Baqubah was the seat of government for Diyala Province, just 60 miles north of Baghdad. It was also home to 250,000 people who had endured over a year of brutality from (and nearly impenetrable isolation by) Al Qaeda in Iraq, which had declared Baqubah the capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and implemented strict Sharia law. Our organization, 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team—the Arrowhead Brigade—was sent there to liberate it from Al Qaeda’s death grip.

My purpose in Baqubah was unlike the traditional role of soldiers in combat. My role was born of the Brigade Commander’s strategy to make our attack of Baqubah relevant—by not only removing Al Qaeda, but also by making life better for the citizens.

Al Qaeda had made the residents of Baqubah miserable with strict enforcement of Sharia law that took away most of the people’s freedoms. Still, Al Qaeda was effective at controlling basic needs such as food and water and then denying the people any sense of safety. Al Qaeda’s attack on the social and essentialservice infrastructure turned the city into a smoking mess (and our artillery and precision rockets during the attack surely didn’t help). Electricity was available only sporadically. The water was either inaccessible or contaminated. Sewers had been destroyed by deeply-buried improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Trash had accumulated in mountains on the sides of the roads. The food rationing system had slowed to a complete halt, and that—coupled with local markets being shut down and food imports barely trickling in from around the country—meant malnutrition, hunger, and even starvation were becoming real issues. There were far more people unemployed than working, which made recruitment into the insurgency much easier. Streets were barren: no city transportation was available, and people were afraid to move about because of the lack of security. Combine all of that with an enemy still intent on taking back control of the town, and you become painfully aware that the situation could turn from bad to worse overnight.

Then, there was Baqubah’s mayor, Abdullah. Abdullah was a short, welldressed man who reminded me a lot of Danny DeVito, except he had a full and meticulously-maintained head of hair. I referred to Abdullah as Sidi, an Arabic term of respect. He called me Johnson because Fred was too difficult. When he was excited, he would say my name several times in a row: Johnson-JohnsonJohnson!

Abdullah’s office had one desk and one chair, and it was always full of very unhappy citizens. The scene somewhat resembled a Wall Street trading floor just before the closing bell, except here old men with turbans, young men in suits, and even a few women in hijabs screamed their grievances over everything from the lack of electricity to the sewage in the streets.

The crowd engulfed Abdullah. His head would appear and disappear from view, bobbing in the sea of the mob as though he were a buoy in rough waters. I raised my arms halfway up from my sides, palms up. What in the hell are we going to do? The mayor emerged from the horde soaked in sweat and pulled me to a side room. Abdullah looked around, put one finger to his mouth to shush me, and said, “Johnson-Johnson,” pulling me towards a corner of the room farther away from the crowd.

Then he explained to me, among other things, that he’d been a bus driver before becoming mayor. “I’m the only person that would take the job,” he told me. “I’m not sure what we should do.”

Perfect, I thought. I can’t change the oil in my car, let alone fix the electrical grid of a city, and the guy in charge of that city is a bus driver. We were Humpty and Dumpty with no clue how to put Baqubah back together again.

With the promise to meet again the next day, the crowd dispersed in small groups until everyone was gone.

Abdullah slumped in his chair. I pulled up several crates next to the mayor and sat with him. He signaled to his only assistant to bring chai—simple black tea in this case. After letting the steaming cups cool a couple minutes, Abdullah took a sip and winced. I asked him what was wrong. He said, “No sugar. So bitter.”

Staff Sergeant Jared Knapp, the leader of my personal security detachment, was listening. Knapp went out to our vehicle and came back with several packets of sugar. When he came back in, he extended them to Abdullah, and Abdullah looked as if Knapp had just offered him a bar of gold. But Abdullah did not take the sugar; he folded the packets gently back into Knapp’s hand and pushed them away. “Thank you, but I can’t take these,” he said.

I laughed. “Why?” I asked. “It’s just a couple packets of sugar.”

Abdullah’s face turned grim. He said, “We haven’t had sugar for months. I know one thing about being mayor, and that is that if I take the sugar, there would be a riot.” He told us that Al Qaeda controls the warehouses that have the supplemental food items (like sugar) that they normally get from the government.

Abdullah continued: “Saddam Hussein implemented the food distribution system to counter the effects of the economic sanctions of the First Gulf War.” The program of Hussein’s he described sounded a lot like the WIC system for low-income families in the U.S. Abdullah sighed. “Iraqis became dependent on the government rations. When Al Qaeda seized the warehouses, they used food as a weapon to control the population. The Trade Ministry in Baghdad stopped transporting food to Baqubah because it was not safe. The warehouses here are nearly empty now.”

I asked what other items were part of their usual supplement. In addition to sugar, it included food items like rice, dry milk, and flour. The mayor drew a shaky breath and said, defeated: “If we could only get Baghdad to start shipping the food again. That would keep the people off my back for a while so we can figure out what to do with the water, electricity, and sewage.”

A look of epiphany flashed onto Staff Sergeant Knapp’s face. He took the sugar packets back out of his pockets, one in each hand. He brought the two together into one hand, and as he did he said, “Well, why don’t

Abdullah and I had been staring blindly into the abyss. Knapp’s suggestion snapped our heads upright. Abdullah and I locked eyes, then smiled and nodded at each other.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carl Von Clausewitz once said, “War is very simple, but the simplest things in war are very difficult.” He was right a hundred times over in Iraq, a thousand times over in Baqubah.

Abdullah arranged a convoy of 20 civilian Iraqi trucks to pick up Baqubah’s mostneeded ration staple, flour, from the Ministry of Trade in Baghdad. He figured that, if we could show the government that it was safe to bring flour into the city, the other food items would be able to follow, and the public distribution system would slowly be re-established. But we had to get that first step right—it was most important to show the city’s residents some sign of immediate success, that the situation was getting better and not worse.

Abdullah would not go at this task alone. We would provide security, along with the Iraqi police, to ensure the civilian trucks got to the Ministry of Trade safely and then returned to Baqubah with the flour.

In Baqubah, while preparing the convoy to Baghdad with the Iraqi Army and civilian truck drivers, I was directing traffic trying to get vehicles in position. As I narrowly avoided being run over by a Toyota pickup truck, I saw a young Iraqi man walking briskly towards us, an intense look in his eyes. I saw a bulge in his loose, un-tucked shirt.

Suicide belt, I thought.

I unholstered my 9mm and pointed it at him. I shouted in Arabic for him to stop and lie down, but he kept moving. I shouted again, this time in English: “Damn it, get down!”

He stopped, raised his hands, and in very good English replied: “It’s okay, I’m a policeman! I’m here to help!” I told him to raise his shirt. He did, exposing a pistol—which I then found out had no bullets in it.

Akmed, as he introduced himself, said he knew how to get to the food distribution point in Baghdad. Akmed said he would lead us there and help negotiate the release of the food. He left to get a vehicle and some of his friends and promised to be back soon.

The episode continued as the convoy of 20 civilian pickup trucks, an Iraqi Army platoon, a U.S. Stryker platoon, and the three vehicles from my personal security detachment all prepared to move to Baghdad. We waited for Akmed, but he didn’t show, so we finally decided to take off.

Baghdad was only 60 miles to the south, but it might as well have been 500. Every 10 miles there were checkpoints, which slowed our progress.

The food distribution center was on the northeast side of Baghdad on the edge of Sadr City. We had plotted the location on our GPS, which should have taken us directly to the location. However, when we arrived at the location on the GPS, there was only a simple market. We kept driving until we’d done three laps all the way around Sadr City. We were about to start our fourth lap when Staff Sergeant Knapp, who was providing rear security, radioed me that a car was approaching fast and flashing its lights. Again, our first thought was that it was a suicide vehicle approaching for attack, but Knapp noticed that someone was hanging out the window of the car waving and pointing for us to turn right. It was Akmed, and yet again he only narrowly avoided getting shot.

We stopped and the young Iraqi pulled up next to us. I asked where he’d been. Akmed said he had to borrow a vehicle and get gas; we had left by the time he’d returned. With little time to waste (because the distribution center would be closing soon), I told him to lead the way. He pointed to a large building a block down the street and told me, “It’s right there. Just pull in.”

We spent the next several hours trying to negotiate release of the food with the center’s manager. The fat bureaucrat wouldn’t budge. He said that we had not brought the correct paperwork and we would have to come back in another week.

We didn’t have a week to wait. I wasn’t leaving and I made that fact clear. The real reason we were denied food was that Baghdad’s food distribution center was run by Shi’a Muslims, while Baqubah was predominantly a Sunni town. It was sectarianism, plain and simple. I felt the bile rising in my stomach and my face getting red. I lost my temper. I began to yell, which was a terrible mistake; in Arab culture, men are particularly offended when someone raises their voice to them.

The fat man’s security closed in. About the same time, we heard an explosion outside the building. Someone had thrown a grenade at one of our Strykers. The team leader in the vehicle that was hit said everyone was all right, but he told me that we should move soon. A crowd was starting to form outside the gate of the parking lot. We temporarily stopped the meeting so we could assess the situation while Akmed stayed behind.

When we returned, Akmed stopped me in the door. He said, “Everything is under control. I talked to the manager and I know some of the same people. He will release the food, but you cannot lose your temper again. Please.”

True to his word, Akmed had worked it out. I learned later that Akmed was Shi’a. I’m sure a deal of some kind was made, but I didn’t care.

The next day the food was loaded on the trucks. We returned to Baqubah with the Iraqi Army in the lead as conquering heroes. We had Akmed to thank for it all—the same man we nearly shot twice.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Abdullah’s stock as mayor grew after our successful mission to secure the food. He went with us on the mission, and he was in the front vehicle upon our return, leading the way into the city. With newfound confidence and the support of the city’s residents, Abdullah started making progress fixing many of the other problems in the city.

We’d intended to work our way up Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs— survival and security first, comfort and opportunity later. However, given the devastation that Baqubah had endured, the best we could hope to do was satisfy the basic requirements for living, along with some security.

But Abdullah had more on his mind. He wanted for Baqubah to be self-sufficient, to not rely upon Baghdad for flour. He wanted to re-open the flour mills that had been closed during Al Qaeda’s occupation. The mayor told me that the mills had sustained hundreds of jobs. With the mills open, he said, people could work and Baqubah could feed itself. “Johnson,” he said, “this is the most important thing we must do.”

It may have been the most important, but it was also the most difficult. The largest mill was isolated on the southern tip of the city and would require security forces to defend. It hadn’t operated in over a year and it would need to be repaired first. We had to find the people who could fix, maintain, and run the machinery. Not least of all, we had to get wheat to that mill to make the flour.

Everything would work against us except the will of Mayor Abdullah.

We were in Baqubah nearly two months. On the final day before heading back home, Abdullah rode with us to the mill. We entered the building to the hum of machines processing wheat into flour. The chief engineer approached us, smiling, and pointed to containers overflowing with the processed grain. Then, from behind his back, with both hands, he presented us loaves of freshly-baked bread made from the flour produced that day. He handed a loaf to me; I broke it and gave half to Abdullah, who was quietly crying. Abdullah held the loaf to the sky, blessing it.

He looked at me with jubilation. “Johnson-Johnson, this is bread. This is good.”

“Yes it is, Sidi. It is good.”