Love and Honor

by Dave Tobin

Monday September 08, 2008, 10:59 AM

Howard Draper hit the bottle hard after his stint with the Army in Afghanistan.

Six months after Sept. 11, 2001, he was part of the U.S. Army's first big push against the Taliban -- Operation Anaconda. He was fighting at 10,000 feet in early March, bullets flying by his ears and feet, so cold at night in the snowy mountains that soldiers slept during the day, spooning to keep warm. In a week of fighting, eight U.S. soldiers died, 82 were wounded.

He was 26. He'd joined the Marines when he was 19 and served in Kosovo, but he had experienced nothing like Afghanistan.

The effects of that war would dog him to this day, even threaten his life, until he learned --through his steadfast soldier wife and extended family -- to accept help.

Draper and his wife would discover how tough it is to re-adapt to life after combat. They would have it worse than most: The combat soldier and the soldier wife would reverse roles. He would become the single parent staying behind in Clay; she would go overseas to fight.

From the beginning, Draper felt most adrift away from combat. When he came back from Afghanistan in 2002, Draper showed up for work at Fort Drum reeking of alcohol. Counselors told him he might have post-traumatic stress disorder and recommended help. He breezed through the Army's drinking program and kept drinking.

After he joined the New York Army National Guard unit in Mattydale in 2004, his second home was Mac's Bad Art Bar in Mattydale, a dimly lit refuge of black velvet sad clown and Elvis paintings, where he'd sit near the dartboards in his fatigues, pounding beer and shots of tequila.

His last night in Syracuse before heading to Iraq for another tour, he spent $230 buying round after round of beers and bushwackers -- a six-shot drink. He capped off the evening vomiting in the parking lot.

At Fort Bliss, Texas, during two weeks of preparation for Iraq, he became fast friends with another ex-Marine, Michael Uvanni from Rome, N.Y. They ate together, exercised together at the gym. They liked tattoos, motorcycles and the heavy metal music of Disturbed. On their last night in Texas, they partied at Hooters. In the parking lot, Uvanni gave Draper drunken joy rides in a shopping cart.

One month into their Iraq mission, Uvanni was killed by a sniper. Draper choked up when he spoke at the fallen soldier ceremony for his best friend in Iraq.

Draper e-mailed news of Uvanni's death to another new friend in Syracuse, Jordaine Probst, a New York Army National Guard soldier.

He'd met her at a drill weekend. Before long, they were talking about going to the same war at the same time. Both were scheduled to go to Iraq. Ultimately Probst -- a single mother with two children -- decided to stay behind.

As a friend and soldier, Probst seemed to understand what Uvanni's death meant to Draper. She'd never met Uvanni, but she attended his funeral.

Time to change

In December 2004, when Draper returned to Syracuse, he asked to stay with Probst at her new town house in Clay. She agreed, on one condition.

"Everything you did prior to Iraq is not going to take place in my home," Probst told him.

Draper was ready for this. In Iraq, where drinking is forbidden, he could see that alcohol was hurting him. He would lay off the booze, he told her.

"I needed to change my ways," he said. "I seen the movies, how Vietnam vets were drunk and homeless. I don't want to be like that."

Changing wasn't easy. One February night, he and Probst went to meet friends at Mac's bar. Draper got drunk and became confrontational with Probst. She drove away with his wallet and coat, leaving him to walk some 15 miles home in sub-freezing weather.

Still in the battle

Probst had joined the National Guard in February 2000, while a fashion textile student at Buffalo State College, where she competed on the swim team.

Draper's first impression was that she was funny and outgoing, a "weekend warrior," not a serious soldier.

He was four years older, had been a hell-raiser in high school. He once chewed up the Central Square high school's lawn with his car until it stuck in the mud. He eventually earned his GED and joined the Marines. After that, following orders and issuing commands was his life. At 22 he had fathered a child, married shortly after and, within a year, was separated from his wife.

Probst was impressed by his seasoned soldier's discipline and fortitude, she said.

"He had ingrained the Army/U.S. Marine Corps values into who he was," she said. "At one point, he was the kind of soldier that I wanted to be."

A few weeks after his sobering walk home, he was training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. In a text message, he cast Probst a tentative proposal.

"If I asked you to marry me, would you?"

"Are you asking?" she replied.

They eloped to Las Vegas and were married in May 2005, just four months after Draper had returned from Iraq. A fellow Guardsman from Syracuse served as both best man and bridesmaid.

Draper's PTSD lurked. Within weeks, he was angry, depressed and withdrawn. Probst felt as if their whole relationship changed overnight.

"We weren't friends anymore," she said.

He seemed to want as little contact as possible with Probst and her daughter, leaving early for work to guard the Nine Mile Point nuclear station, returning home sullen. Sleeping, "he was still in the battle," his wife said. "You could feel his trigger finger go off almost every night."

He took criminal justice classes and applied to police agencies around Central New York. The two departments that expressed interest decided they would not hire him for fear he would be deployed again, he said.

Probst also was working for the National Guard, caring for her daughter, doing nearly all the work around the house. Soon she was pregnant.

She prodded Draper to see a counselor. He did, reluctantly, and found excuses to avoid regular visits. He was prescribed medication but didn't take it.

"I don't want to be seen as broken, or weak, because I'll be the first one to take a bullet for anyone in this unit," he said.

Probst read all she could on PTSD and for the first few months of their marriage tried to support him.

"I owed it to him as a soldier," she said.

When their daughter was born in March 2006, they named her McKayla Uvanni Kabri Probst-Draper, after Draper's friend. Draper and Probst call her Uvanni. Before her second birthday, Draper had brought Uvanni to visit the dead soldier's grave, to meet the soldier's mother.

"She'll know who he was," Draper said.

With a baby in the house, stress increased.

"I took everything that was wrong and internalized it," Probst said. "I began to hate Bill as friend, father, husband and most of all a soldier. It was like I was suffering from PTSD."

It would be a relief, she figured, if she could go to war.

Continue reading "Love and Honor" »

1-800-273-8255

by Dave Tobin

Sunday August 10, 2008, 12:11 PM

UPSTATE HOME TO NATION'S ONLY VETERANS SUICIDE HOT LINE

By Dave Tobin Staff writer
Sunday, April 13, 2008

The veteran was calling from a phone booth. His knife was wedged in the phone booth door, the blade facing him. He had four kids, but at this point, he was done. He told the guy on the other end of the line that he was going to jam his neck onto the blade. And he hung up.

Jeff Stephenson, an addiction counselor at the Veterans Suicide Hotline at the Canandaigua VA Medical Center, recounts the exchange with the urgency of the moment. He can't call back. The payphone won't take incoming calls. A colleague has sent police to the phone booth. All they can do is wait.

The vet calls again.

This is it. I'm really going to go, he says.

Groping for some connection -- anything to buy time -- Stephenson asks:

"What branch of the military were you in?"

Airborne.

"Really. What unit?"

Third of the 4th (Brigade).

"No kidding. I was 3rd of the 5th (Brigade)."

No way!

"You know, I took an oath when I went down to the 82nd, saying I would take care of my fellow brother. And you are my brother."

They talk awhile.

I can't do it, the vet says, and hangs up.

Minutes pass. He calls a third time.

The police are here. The knife is down. I just wanted to tell you: Airborne all the way!

Though veterans account for nearly 20 percent of the nation's suicides, until last year there was no veterans suicide hot line. The vet in the phone booth could have become another of the 5,000 veteran suicides estimated yearly by the Centers for Disease Control.

The nation's only veterans suicide hot line operates at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Canandaigua.

Stephenson's telephone conversation is one of 726 "rescues" the center has assisted since opening in August. A rescue is a prevented suicide.

The calls keep increasing -- 37,000 since July, more than half from people who identify themselves as vets. The rest are from veterans who don't identify themselves, or from family and friends of veterans. Most calls come toward day's end and the pace stays brisk through the early morning across six time zones. Some calls go on for hours. The center will soon open a sixth phone line which, like the others, will be staffed around the clock, seven days a week.

"People have called from bridges, from the middle of the woods, " said Jan Kemp, VA national suicide prevention coordinator, who runs the hot line. "They've called with guns and pills in their hand to say "goodbye, ' to express anger at the VA or the military or family or friends. They call in lieu of writing a suicide note."

Kemp works in one of the 19th-century Tudor-style buildings the VA bought in 1931. The hot line operates in another building.

The suicide hot line started with a $3 million budget and a mandate to improve suicide prevention for veterans nationwide.

Continue reading "1-800-273-8255" »

New York Guardsmen killed in Afghanistan

by Dave Tobin

Tuesday June 24, 2008, 11:02 PM

Three New York National Guard soldiers from downstate were killed in
Afghanistan, Saturday, the Pentagon announced Tuesday.

They were among four U.S. soldiers who died outside of Kandahar, of
wounds suffered when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive and
they were ambushed.

The three were assigned to 2nd Squadron, 101st Cavalry
(Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), New York Army
National Guard unit in Geneva. They were part of New York's 27th
Brigade Combat Team, 1,700 citizen-soldiers who are helping train
Afghan National army and police. They are the first New York Army
National Guard soldiers killed in Afghanistan since fighting began
there in 2001.

Killed were: Spc. Anthony L. Mangano, 36, of Greenlawn in Suffolk
County. Mangano joined the New York army National Guard in 1991, and
reenlisted in Feb. 2007. He is survived by a wife, who resides in Sao
Paulo, Brazil, and his mother, who lives in Greenlawn.

Sgt. Nelson D. Rodriguez Ramirez, 22, of Revere, Mass. Ramirez joined
the New York National Guard in 2003. Prior to this deployment he was a
member of Company B Second Battalion 108th Infantry and C Troop Second
Squadron 101st Cavalry, both based in Buffalo. He is survived by a
daughter who lives with he ex-wife in Niagara Falls, and by his father
and mother, in Chelsea, Mass. and Revere Mass., respectively. He was
was a specialist when the incident occurred and was promoted
posthumously to sergeant.

Sgt. Andrew Seabrooks, 36, of Queens, N.Y., Seabrooks joined the Ne
York National Guard in 1994 and was assigned to Company G of the
427the Brigade Support Battalion in Jamaica, Queens, prior to being
assigned to the 101st Cavalry for this deployment. He is survived by a
wife and two children, who live in Newport News, Va. and an adult son
who lives in Jamaica, Queens.

Lt. Col. James J. Walton, 41, of Rockville, Md., who was assigned to a Military Transition Team, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan. Continue reading "New York Guardsmen killed in Afghanistan" »

War-bound soldiers are banking their sperm in CNY

by Dave Tobin

Monday June 02, 2008, 5:25 PM

Before male soldiers head to war zones, some are taking an extra precaution.

Coming of age in the Marines

by Dave Tobin

Monday June 02, 2008, 10:34 AM

Every coming-of-age-story is unique, and some really resonate. My colleague, Michelle Breidenbach, wrote a story about Marine Cpl. Ryan Joseph Woodruff, 21, of East Syracuse in Sunday's paper. If you haven't read it, it's worth your time.

Military spouses share a bond

by Dave Tobin

Monday May 05, 2008, 5:33 PM

Tara Vieth's twin boys have their eighth birthday this week and don't want to celebrate. Their dad, New York Army National Guard Spc. Chad Vieth, is at war in Afghanistan. Without him, a birthday party wouldn't be a party.

"We have good days and not-so-good days," said Vieth, who lives in Dexter, near Fort Drum.

Vieth had come to Mattydale with her sons to join some 30 military family members for Sunday's monthly meeting of an Army National Guard family readiness group at the Army National Guard Armory.

There were parents, spouses and girlfriends of soldiers, some experiencing deployment for the first time, some who have spent decades dealing with deployment as a spouse and now face it as a parent - everyone finding their own way of coping.

They heard advice about their soldiers' military paychecks - bigger, now that soldiers are in a combat zone, where they receive combat pay and a family separation allowance and aren't taxed.

"Just plan for all that to stop when they come home," said Sgt. 1st Class Ralph Turner, with the 427th Brigade Support Battalion of the 27th Brigade Combat Team.

They boxed care packages for soldiers: drink mixes, deodorant, toothpaste, hacky sacks, playing cards, Yahtzee, foot powders, soap, magazines, energy bars. They shared their plans for ways to support their soldiers in the months ahead, their frustrations and experiences.

Continue reading "Military spouses share a bond" »

Interpreters in the field fear end of U.S. Occupation

by Hart Seely

Friday May 02, 2008, 1:33 PM

Aug. 19, 2007

"HKS" is a 28-year-old Iraqi interpreter now living on a U.S. military base in Baghdad. Since becoming a U.S. "terp" in April 2003, he has gone on hundreds of missions and is now serving with his sixth U.S. military unit.

He has not seen his family for nine months. He fears his presence would endanger them. He believes he will be killed if cut loose by the U.S. military.

He spoke by phone with Hart Seely:

Q: Are you trying to get to the United States?

Yes, sir. We're doing our best, sir, but every time our paperwork gets kicked back. That's the problem, it getting kicked back.

Q: You can't go back to your family?

Yeah. We can't. That's the problem. I mean, the soldiers are my family, right now. Me and other "terps, we don't go home at all, sir. Sometimes, we sneak out just to give the family money and come back right away ...

We have no future here. That's it. We're done, sir. We're cursed.

Q: How long can you do what you're doing?

I have to, sir. I have to keep working, because I don't have any chance to go back to my civilian life, sir. And God forbid if the U.S. troops will withdraw from this country, and do not take us with them, I mean, we're going to be killed. They're going to drag us through the streets ...

The Iraqi civilians, they are not accepting us, sir, because they say, "We're working for the invaders, ' or "We're working for the people that destroyed this country.' That's what they are thinking. They don't know that the Coalition wants to talk to them. They don't know how to speak English. They don't know that they need us. They don't know that we are the key that makes the Western culture and the Orient culture close together. They don't know that we are the link between the Coalition and them. They don't realize that, until the last moment, until they need an interpreter.

Q: America's leaders have vowed not to turn their backs on Iraqi allies.

About this part, sir, about turning backs on your allies ... I mean, everybody keeps saying and talking about Vietnam and showing pictures on TV of how the Vietnamese wanted to go to the states when the U.S. troops withdrew from the country, and how hundreds of people wanted to get into the helicopters, so they can evacuate Saigon, and all of that. This is very scary for us. This is very scary, sir ...

We're counting on the American people. We're counting on the people because we helped their sons. I mean, I just want you to ask the soldiers when they come back to their country from their deployments. Just ask them how big a help that we were for them.

All the news that we keep hearing from soldiers is that 50 percent or 60 percent from the Coalition will leave this country next year, and that they're going to have to release a lot of interpreters, and that we need to have a real job, we need to start a career and all that - but it's all late, sir. There is no hope. It's not only my story. It's not only my problem, sir. It's the same problem that hundreds of interpreters are facing.

His Terps were targets

by Hart Seely

Friday May 02, 2008, 1:09 PM

Translation: A local man recruited interpreters to help U.S. troops in Iraq, but he watched too many of them die

Aug., 19 2007

Q: How many Iraqi translators did you know of that got killed?

A: Oh, God, hundreds.

Q: Are you kidding?

A: Over the course of the two years, hundreds. That I personally knew? Hundreds. Oh, God. Hundreds.

He had a simple plan. He'd work three years in Baghdad, maybe four. The war would end, Iraq would blossom, and he'd make his fortune, live happily ever after.

What could go wrong?

These days, Naiel K. Mere of North Syracuse sleeps with the lights on, clings to his family and deals with the memory of the people left behind, the thousands of Iraqis he hired to translate for U.S. troops.

He has a simple mission. Don't let America forget them.

"This nation owes them a great deal, " said Mere, 33, who for nearly two years managed a work force of 2,600 interpreters in Baghdad. "They have risked their lives day in and day out, not knowing if they'll get killed on the mission or on the way home ... We must make sure they are taken care of."

Last December, after a series of events shattered his peace of mind, Mere came home. He left his job as a central Baghdad program director for L3 Communications, a defense contractor, and has been rebuilding his life.

Mere suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, an increasingly common problem for Iraq veterans and contractors. His marriage has collapsed, but Mere takes strength from his parents and his 8-year-old daughter, Nadia.

"Right now, that's what keeps me going, " he said.

It was such a simple plan. Go to Iraq. Raise a nation. Build a future.

What could go wrong?

Iraq: Land of opportunity

In 1967, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in the Middle East, Kamal Mere, a 15-year-old Palestinian, walked 45 miles to Jordan from his native town of Jerusalem. It was a trail strewn with dead bodies. From there, he eventually flew to a place called Chicago. At age 17, Kamal found work in a factory and soon held two jobs.

He met his future wife, Norma, and they had three children. In 1985, he and brother Jamal paid $169,000 for a corner store in a place called Syracuse. They opened Jimmy's Super Saver at 1300 S. State St., near the public housing known as Brick City. They run it still.

On Sept. 16, 2001, days after the World Trade Center attack, Kamal wept as he watched his only son, Naiel, take an oath to join the U.S. Army.

"He came to me and said, "I want to go in the Army, "' Kamal Mere recalled recently. "I told him, "Whatever you want, go, go defend your country.' I back him up. But I feel bad."

Eighteen months later, Mere's civil affairs unit, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, deployed to a desert region west of Baghdad. The lone soldier to speak Arabic, Mere found himself straddling every discussion with the local government.

But Mere's rare skin disease flared in the desert, and treatments failed. After eight months, the Army sent him home. On July 27, 2004, he received an honorable discharge, based on medical disability. For his work, Mere was awarded a Bronze Star.

The family rejoiced over his return. But Mere didn't plan to stay. He saw Iraq as a land of opportunity. In December 2004, Mere joined Titan Corp., a company later bought by L3 Communications. He worked in its Baghdad office, which served as the U.S. military's employment agency for Iraq translators.

In the highly fortified Green Zone, Titan's 12-person staff sought to fill the military's need for translators who could ride with U.S. troops.

Mere would work long hours, live in a trailer and eat in the dining hall. In one year, he could earn $150,000. But it came with risks.

"Money is not everything in life, " the father said recently. "Money comes and goes. Life does not come and go. Life goes and stays gone."

Kamal said his son never talks about Iraq, but the father can sense pain.

"In his dreams, he is still over there, " Kamal said.

"Terps': Highly paid targets

When Mere arrived in Baghdad, Titan's roster of about 1,300 translators filled only 30 percent of the U.S. military's needs. By July 2005, his staff had raised that figure to 98 percent.

"You were able to adjust the flow of linguists from Titan to the Command to fill the most critical requirements in the quickest manner possible, " wrote Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, in an award to Mere that month. "Thank you for a job well done."

Each day, Mere fielded hundreds of e-mails and calls. Whenever a military unit had a problem with its interpreter, or vice versa, he had to fix it.

At $1,050 a month, a "terp" could earn more than many Iraqi doctors. But if identified by insurgents, interpreters and their families became prime targets.

In mid-2005, the enemy began to pinpoint translators as a tactical weakness in the U.S. force. Without its interpreter, the patrol could not understand a reasonable request or heed a critical warning. The insurgency wanted to send a message to anyone thinking of helping the United States.

Increasingly, Mere found himself identifying bodies at the morgue.

He saw some burned beyond recognition. He saw marks of torture. He saw children who had been murdered in front of their father.

He told himself it could not continue, then watched in horror as the violence worsened.

He made death payments to the families.

"They would sit on a couch in my office. I would try to keep it professional. I would apologize for the loss. I would get down on my knees, and I'd count out the cash in front of them.

"I'd fold it, and I'd stay on my knees, to be respectful. Then I would put the cash in their hands. And then they would just go crazy, crying. There I am, giving them cash for their son or their daughter."

"I always carried one bullet'

"You had good people there, people like Naiel, " said Bradley F. Lucas, 46, Titan's former regional manager north of Baghdad, now on a leave of absence. "The bad ones were sorted out quickly."

A 25-year Army veteran, Lucas went to Iraq to earn enough money to put his two kids through college. He figured the country would stabilize.

During his two years, Lucas survived eight roadside bombs, including one that killed two U.S. soldiers. He once found himself on an enemy's "Wanted" poster.

"I always carried one bullet, just for me, " he said. "I wasn't going to go on TV with my head being cut off."

At first, his translators faced the same basic danger as U.S. troops, the improvised explosive devices that lurked on roads. Later, as they became high-priority targets, their deaths became common.

"After a while, I guess I just tried not to get to know many of them well, " Lucas said recently. "It was because of the danger."

Lucas, who came home to Washington state last December, is considering a return to Baghdad, if L3 still has the government contract.

Last December, the U.S. Defense Department dropped L3 from its $4.6 billion, five-year contract for translator services. One reason: complaints about its record servicing Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In 2006, the Iraq Study Group noted that the 1,000-staff U.S. Embassy in Iraq had only six interpreters proficient in Arabic. L3 has appealed the government's decision and still runs the program.

L3 declined comment for this story. A company spokesman said it employs 5,000 translators, and 280 have died in the line of duty.

That figure would not include former translators, killed after they no longer worked for L3. Mere and Lucas noted that ex-interpreters remain targets.

Lucas said he is haunted by the deaths of his people. In particular, he cannot forget one young translator, whose parents came to him with their concerns. Lucas assured them the U.S. would do everything possible to protect their daughter, and they decided to let her take the job.

A few days later, she was killed by an IED.

"They didn't hold me responsible, like you'd think they would, " Lucas said recently, in a voice choked with emotion. "But it was very hard. I still cannot forget her face."

Lucas still talks periodically with a former translator who is holed-up in Baghdad, desperate to leave the country. He holds little hope.

"The bureaucracy is just unbelievable, " Lucas said. "I mean, no one seems to care."

Continue reading "His Terps were targets" »

Soldiers head to training, then Afghanistan

by Dave Tobin

Thursday May 01, 2008, 1:19 AM

Bagpipes sounded, the governor spoke and 235 soldiers bound for Afghanistan stood in formation.

Continue reading "Soldiers head to training, then Afghanistan" »

Back from Iraq, all in one piece, but somehow everything's different

by Dave Tobin

Sunday February 24, 2008, 1:29 AM

A few weeks back from Iraq, wearing his Navy Reserve dress uniform after giving a talk, Cmdr. Patrick Perfetti sped past an elementary school in Cortland. A man stepped in front of Perfetti's car, stepped back and stepped out again, forcing Perfetti to stop. Continue reading "Back from Iraq, all in one piece, but somehow everything's different" »

Guard's homefront preps for deployment

by Dave Tobin

Monday December 10, 2007, 1:21 AM

Call it basic training for the homefront. Continue reading "Guard's homefront preps for deployment" »

War games train soldiers for war zone

by Dave Tobin

Monday October 29, 2007, 1:24 AM

What's a soldier need to know to go to war? One-hundred-and-fifty-two things and more. Continue reading "War games train soldiers for war zone" »

N.Y. soldiers prepare for tour of duty in Afghanistan

by Dave Tobin

Sunday October 07, 2007, 1:27 AM

Spc. Raymond Persons is engaged to marry; the date is set for September 2009. But first, he has to fight a war. Continue reading "N.Y. soldiers prepare for tour of duty in Afghanistan" »