She Came to the Door to Wave Good-bye . . .
A soldier's thoughts about family, life and the war in Afghanistan
by
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I wrote the below passage in November 2001 within days of deploying.
I was told to deploy on Saturday and left on Sunday night. I spent too many hours at work preparing but somehow managed to spend some real quality time with my kids and my wife before I left. Those few hours continue to replay in my head—and all I can think about is how much I love them. I struggled on Sunday to leave the office and spend the final minutes at home—hard to do but I managed to break away to repack due to all the extra gear I just had issued. My daughter Jessica tried on my flak vest—I remember how cute she was but then thought how much I did not want her exposed to the trade equipment of a soldier.
I woke at 0200 hours (2:00 AM) and departed for the office. I then drove our family van back to drop it off at the house—as I drove away I saw Cynthia at the door. I remember thinking I should run back for one last embrace—she looked like a movie star playing the role of the wife left behind—but it was too real—but very romantic—then all these thoughts turned to sadness as the van taking me to the airport drove away and I could no longer see her. Then I was gone—and all I could think about was how I was going to regret not going back for a final kiss good-bye.
Travel
Most soldiers deploy to a war zone by boat or military aircraft—I however deployed via British airways and business class to boot. What a treat—I felt like a king. I finished my book (Founding Brothers) and had a glass of red wine. I remember reading about the close relationship between John and Abigail Adams—and I thought of Cynthia and how much her counsel means to me. She is truly my strength.
I traveled with Brigadier General Thomas Goedkoop, the Assistant Division Commander and Colonel Rebecca Halstead, one of the brigade commanders in the division and an expert in logistics. We flew to London and then to Kuwait. While exchanging planes in London COL Halstead’s pistol was detected in her bag—this caused us all to be asked to unpack our bags and turn over our pistols to the airport security. Now, not only was I deploying to war on a commercial airplane, I was now without my weapon—modern warfare at its best!
In Kuwait we were treated like royalty. We attended briefings and attempted to figure out what was going on in Uzbekistan—and on the ground in Afghanistan. It was very easy to see at first that very few people had their arms around what was going on—all were working hard—but no one single person had a total grasp of the situation. I knew we were headed for a very difficult mission that was developing so quickly that we would be challenged to ever catch up.
I could have never imagined what a difficult journey lie ahead. Kuwait was to be our last stop before reaching our final destination—it ended up we were a bit further away than I thought. We had to fly to our little war zone again by commercial air—this time through Germany to catch a military aircraft and then on to Turkey to our final destination, Uzbekistan.
Once there we linked up with the other advance party team and began our task of establishing the site for the Division Headquarters and executing our part in the war in Afghanistan.
And I began to write my thoughts.
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About the Book
"America did not change on September 11th-it is the same as it has been for the past 226 years. There remain plenty of evil people in the world who will attempt to deny us our freedom. We have acted like Americans have always acted when faced with adversity-we chose to fight back. It is our basic belief that all humans regardless of race or religion deserve to live in a free world."
LTC Walter E. Piatt
About the Author
Walt Piatt is originally from Somerset, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Cynthia have two children, Jessica who turned seven and Joshua who turned five during Walt’s service in Afghanistan. Walt served as a Lieutenant Colonel for the US Army’s 10th Mountain division during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan from November 2001 through June 2002.