"They Fought Out of Pure Love"

"There were few people I would follow to hell and back, and Romesha is one of them"                -PFC Chris Jones

Today, President Obama will (or did, depending on when I actually publish this baby) award former SSG Clint Romesha the Congressional Medal of Honor. Romesha is the 4th living recipient and is the second recipient I have posted about on this blog, (you can read about the other here) and man alive, do I feel honored to have even heard these men's names.

I remember the day in October 2009 when COP Keating was overrun. I remember thinking "My God, my husband was there not two years before" (he was in the unit that helped build it and had served with the COP's namesake, LT Ben Keating). I remember praying like crazy for those lost and how scared they must have been to fight for their lives during a TWELVE hour battle with insurgents sometimes as few as 10 feet away. I think at that time it the most deadly single incident in the history of the war, ousting an incident during Erik's deployment to the same area from the "top" spot. A threshold so many Americans were praying we didn't cross.

Eight soldiers were killed that day at COP Keating:

SSG Vernon Martin

SSG Justin Gallegos
SGT Joshua Hardt

SGT Joshua Kirk

SGT Michael Scusa

SPC Christopher Griffin

SPC Stephan Mace

PFC Kevin Thomson 

I first read about SSG Clint Romesha specifically while reading The Outpost by Jake Tapper. (Yes, I finally finished it, for those of you wondering). I remember thinking how brave he and the others were, 52 of them them standing up to 300 Taliban and so many living to tell about it - a big part of that due to the bravery of SSG Romesha, who himself with what I read to be literally a hole in his arm from an RPG, and I just think "There is just no possible way I could be that brave". How did they look death in the face, accept that they may not see their wives or kids or parents ever again, and then start storming buildings? I guess because they didn't have any choice, that storming those buildings was the only chance they would have to ever see their family again. And I guess a Soldier probably makes peace with their mortality far in advance of having an enemy inside the wire of their camp. All things I just don't think I could do.

"With complete disregard for his own safety, Romesha continually exposed himself to heavy enemy fire as he moved confidently about the battlefield engaging and destroying multiple enemy targets, including three Taliban fighters who had breached the combat outpost's perimeter," his award citation reads.

Romesha himself has said that the Battle for COP Keating was group effort. The Black Knights are all heroes. In that light, I want to take a minute and tell you that 27 of the Soldiers who fought for COP Keating that day received Purple Hearts. That's more than half. 18 received Bronze Stars and 9 received Silver Stars. (There were more awards too, but I can't find concrete sources at the moment)

These Soldiers fought for each other out of love, "pure love" as President Obama and the mom of PFC Stephan Mace have both said. They fought to keep each other alive with bullets and sometimes giving (literally) their own blood via buddy transfusions, and when one of them fell, they fought to keep the body safe so their families could welcome them home. If that isn't valor, patriotism and love, I don't know what is.

And so I thank God every single day for men like those who served at Keating, and the hundreds of thousands of other veterans that have served our great country. You folks make America proud. And you make me dang proud to be an American.

I really, really encourage you to read this through: http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/08/us/uncommon-valor It's a very interesting retelling of the events at COP Keating by Jake Tapper, who also became great friends with SSG Romesha while writing The Outpost.

And I would also like to point out to whomever is reading, that over the weekend Jake Tapper and his wife Jennifer, along with Walmart and an anonymous donor, put together a reunion for the Black Knights in Washington, DC. They were aided by American Airlines, Jet Blue, Southwest Airlines and Best Western. A big shout out goes to all those folks who made that reunion possible. I've seen pictures - with the Black Knights, John and Cindy McCain and Denis McDonough (the White House Chief of Staff) as well as Gold Star moms, wives and kiddos, and just the pictures of those folks together moved me. I know that even though the Army is small, the world is big, and sometimes these reunions don't happen all that often. I thanked Jake Tapper at The Outpost book party for bringing so many 3-71 Soldiers together, and I'm thanking him for this now. Thank you.