"A Soldier's Promise" -- Amazing must read about 1st. Sgt. Brent "The Rock" Jurgersen (part 1)
He winged it.
That was his style. No prepared speeches. No fear. Just speak straight from the heart. That's how he earned his nickname: "The Rock."
His troops, 300 or so, stood in formation at the U.S. Army Base in Schweinfurt, Germany. This was a January night in 2004, and the men and women of the 1st Squadron, 4th Calvary Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, were heading off to the war in Iraq.
The Rock — 1st Sgt. Brent Jurgersen — addressed them and their families. He was 41 then, but he still owned the broad shoulders of the Low Moor farm boy and Central DeWitt High School football star he once was.
Six-foot-three, 230 pounds, mostly bald, which made him look even more imposing. A portrait in self-discipline, he had never drunk a cup of coffee, chewed a stick of gum or smoked a cigarette in his life. "Like a machine," one soldier described him.
Imagine how comforting The Rock's confident voice must have sounded to those nervous family members who had assembled to tell their soldiers goodbye.
He talked about how their lives would surely change. Then, with tears in his eyes, he referred to himself and Capt. Jeffrey Paine, the unit's commanding officer:
"One year from today, we will personally bring these soldiers back home to you."
After a few weeks in Iraq, he realized how difficult that task would be. He also knew it was a promise he might not be able to keep.
One of many
Since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003, 2,105 American troops have been killed, and more than 15,800 have been injured.
Where among those stark numbers does one place the story of Brent Jurgersen?
Where is the statistical category for an Iowa soldier who is shot in the face, returns to battle only four months later, and then almost dies a second time when his Humvee is blown up?
How do you explain the actions of a man who sacrificed so much, but still wonderes if he could have done even more?
Other wounded soldiers may express different views. Others may not have been so willing to return. Others may entertain doubts about the U.S. involvement there.
Brent Jurgersen doesn’t consider himself a politician, a symbol or a hero.
He’s just one soldier.
And this is his story.
'An amazing lesson'
Sgt. 1st Class Marvin Miller of C Troop was the squadron's first death.
The 38-year-old Miller, described by relatives in North Carolina as fun-loving and devoted to the Army, was shot and killed while on traffic control duty north of Samarra. It was April 2004. The unit had been there for two months.
Jurgersen had known Miller for three years. Jurgersen's wife, Karin, and Miller's wife, Linnette, were friends. The Millers had four children.
Michael Campbell was the second one killed.
An Army specialist from Marshfield, Mo., he was killed that May when his convoy hit an improvised explosive device — known as an IED — in Samarra. He was 34.
The Rock and his squadron pressed forward.
"A funny thing about war is that when you lose a soldier, your heart sinks, you conduct a memorial, you mourn in your own way, and then you figure out in your own way how to deal with it," he wrote in a letter months later.
"But through all of this, the war is still going on, you still have to get up every day and often fight when you are not ready to. War is an amazing lesson in life."
He had work to do, troops to supervise. But he remembered the promise he had made back in Germany.
He already had lost Marvin Miller, a friend and former platoon sergeant. Now he had lost Michael Campbell, one of his own soldiers. They would not be coming home alive. There would be others.
"We made promises that never should have been made," Jurgersen said later.
That's what bothered him the most when he eventually returned home.
He demanded much of himself, and took great pride in his Army career, but above all else, The Rock kept his word.
Invincible
Jurgersen loved being a first sergeant.
He was promoted to the position in 2003, for the 1st Squadron's C Troop, then for HHT (Headquarters and Headquarters Troop), both based in Germany.
Most soldiers need 18 to 20 years to become a first sergeant. The Rock did it in 13.
The rank made him responsible for the health, welfare and morale of 350 men and women. The first sergeant also directs discipline, fitness and training.
But it was more than that. Jurgersen believed he could help change lives. He enjoyed turning someone with poor skills or a negative attitude into a proud warrior.
If a soldier had a problem, he or she went to The Rock. So did spouses, for that matter. His door was always open, sometimes until 2 or 3 a.m. "Sleeping is overrated" was his motto.
"I have never seen anyone motivate and inspire soldiers like Brent Jurgersen," says Capt. Jeffrey Paine, 31, the Texan who was Jurgersen's commander for the three years that they worked side-by-side. "He has an innate ability to understand soldiers and find the right area to talk about or push to get them to excel."
Many nights, after dinner, Brent would ask his wife, Karin, if she minded stopping by the barracks, where many of his soldiers lived. Just to check in, of course. A five-minute visit turned into an hour, then longer. Karin brought along a book. She was a good partner.
"This was his life," she says. "It was my life, too."
She remained in Germany when he left for Iraq. She worried more about his soldiers than she did about him. He always had exuded such confidence.
"I've always thought I was invincible," he says. "I went to Iraq thinking that way, and I thought my guys thought the same, too."
He was in great physical shape, could run all day. He never went on sick call, thought he could solve any problem. Whatever his soldiers needed, he would provide.
In Iraq, he was in charge of a troop that had grown to 450 soldiers and civilians. He also was the noncommissioned officer in charge of the forward operating base in eastern Samarra — called FOB MacKenzie — that contained about 1,100 people.
The Rock knew everybody.
He led and participated in numerous patrols and combat missions, but also tried to improve life for soldiers back at the base.
Everything had to be brought in, from portable toilets to air conditioners. He opened a phone center, a PX retail store, a fitness center, and designed a place where soldiers could relax.
He allowed a group of Iraqis to open a small shop, a barbershop and a diner. "That was a big hit," he says.
Jurgersen is no politician — he says that all the time — but he believed in the mission in Iraq. He believed the American troops were helping the people there. He could see encouraging signs of improvement every day.
But there also was enough violence to make him worry when one of his soldiers left the base. He wasn't concerned about himself, of course. He was invincible.
'No time for this'
On the morning of June 18, 2004, Jurgersen joined an engineering mission north of Samarra. The U.S. troops planned to knock out some berms that insurgents had been using to bury and hide IEDs.
They heard shots. Just one here and there, "and then bullets started zinging past."
Jurgersen took up a position behind a berm, on a hill, and began spotting for two gunners.
The U.S. troops were ready. They had anticipated contact from the enemy.
"As soon as they presented themselves, we pretty much unleashed everything we had on them guys," he says. "They weren't too smart, because they were hiding next to a gas station."
During the fight, something struck Jurgersen in the mouth; he didn't know what. It didn't hurt that much, but it knocked the M-16 rifle out of his hands. He spit out blood and a few teeth.
He felt behind his head, then his neck, but couldn't feel an exit wound.
He heard Spc. Ryan Beasley yell, "First sergeant got hit!"
Jurgersen crawled down the hill, where Beasley put a pressure dressing on his face. The Rock figured he had a cut lip.
"I was pissed," he says. "I mean, I was hot. I was saying a few choice words that I shouldn't have been saying.
"I didn't want to be taken out of battle. I had too much going on. I had soldiers over there. I had projects going on. I didn't have time for this."
He looked in a mirror on a truck, saw that his lip was ripped and that he was missing some teeth. Crap. He'd need stitches. Probably have to spend the night at the medical base.
He was taken to a landing zone, where he walked onto a Medevac helicopter.
Five days later, he woke up and saw his wife.
Something was wrong.
"She wasn't supposed to be here."
Touch and go
Karin Jurgersen was back at Schweinfurt when an officer called.
She remembers what he said: "He told me it was just a flesh wound, he was missing a few teeth, but his smile wasn't all that pretty, anyway."
But the officer had been misinformed about the extent of Brent's injuries. When Karin reached the Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, three hours away, she learned the truth.
A bullet had struck Brent's M-16, breaking the charging handle, and ripped into his lip, just below his nose, then knocked out four teeth, shredded his tongue and lodged in the back of his throat.
He had suffered an arterial wound in his throat. He had bled for more than an hour. He was in a coma and on life support to help him breathe. His airway had swollen shut.
He was in critical condition.
"Is he stable?" she asked.
"Yes," a doctor replied.
That was code. Karin had done enough volunteer work for the American Red Cross, and spent enough time around Army hospitals, to know that "stable" meant the doctors expected her husband to live.
She said her prayers and remained calm. Like her husband, she also prided herself on her ability to handle anything.
"I knew what happens when there's a bullet wound to the face," she says. "But no one can prepare you for what you see."
Brent's entire body was swollen; his face grotesquely so. His eye was swollen shut; there was a piece of shrapnel behind it. To her, it appeared as though someone had stuffed a small animal down his throat, that's how swollen it was.
Doctors told Karin he would probably be in a drug-induced coma for at least three months. She should plan on a nine-month hospital stay.
"You don't know this man," she thought to herself.
This is what she knew, even as Brent lay helplessly in a hospital bed: As soon as he regained consciousness, the first thing he would want to know was how soon he could get back.
The team
They were a team, Brent and Karin. If he was the surrogate father for his unit, she was the mother for many of the soldiers' wives.
Right from the start, she informed his doctors that their mission was to get Brent on his feet as quickly as possible. She knew her husband well enough to know his Army career wasn't finished yet.
She had grown up in Camanche; they met at Clinton Community College. He was the former high school football star. "I never thought I had a chance with him," she says. His eyes attracted her. He was attracted to . . . well, "I'll plead the fifth," he says.
They raised dairy cows at first, in Illinois and Wisconsin, and Brent could have done that forever. But Karin's health worsened — something called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome — and they had two young children. Running a dairy farm was too much for one person. He needed a new career.
He joined the Army in 1989.
The first year, he didn't like it. He was 27 and accustomed to being his own boss.
"Now I've got some 23-year-old drill sergeant telling me how to manage an $800-a-month paycheck."
But he saw the potential. A person could succeed, and advance, if he just worked hard. He was a farm boy. He certainly could do that.
He moved quickly up the career ladder. First sergeant was the best job yet, for both of them. They could help people, solve problems and direct careers. Karin saw how much influence Brent wielded in the lives of other soldiers. She knew how much he cared about their well-being.
Brent dreamed of becoming a command sergeant major before he retired. If that was his dream, it became Karin's as well.
She figured the Army doctors in Germany had no idea who they were dealing with.
Recovery
Nine months?
He was out of the hospital in 3 weeks.
He couldn't talk well, not yet, but his tongue was mending. Doctors removed three more teeth and rebuilt two others. He endured seven surgeries to repair his face and mouth. He was fitted for dentures.
Doctors removed the bullet from his throat. He had it put in a paperweight.
"I wish I could say the recovery was easy, but it wasn't," he wrote later. "To be honest, it was one of the toughest things I have ever done.
"I remember many nights when everyone had left the hospital, and it was hard to breathe. Oh, I so felt like just giving up. But somehow I made it through this."
The Rock — give up? Not likely.
His daughter Cassie, now 22 and a first-year student at Valparaiso Law School in Indiana, and his son, Chase, now 19 and a sophomore at the University of Dubuque, were in Spain at the time. They rushed to join their father in Germany, and stayed with him in shifts. That boosted his spirits tremendously, and he eventually returned to Schweinfurt to recuperate.
Every morning when he looked in the mirror, the sight reminded him of a teenager with acne, as tiny pieces of shrapnel worked out of his face.
The first few months, he couldn't drink out of a bottle or a cup, only glasses of a certain size. He lost much of his sensitivity to hot and cold foods, and discovered he could burn himself if he wasn't careful. He lost feeling in a large portion of his lip and tongue. His speech sounded slurred, but he could tell he was improving. Slowly.
The Rock occasionally needed to carry a wash rag to wipe the drool from his mouth. That was humbling. But he pushed forward, as always. No fear. No looking back.
The Jurgersens belonged to a church congregation at the base, and Brent's arrival there was viewed as a sign of hope. The military families had attended several memorial services for fallen soldiers. His recovery cheered them.
But Jurgersen was miserable.
Here he was, watching the news, trying to catch a snippet of information about the 1st Squadron. He received e-mails from his soldiers in Iraq, but they couldn't say much, for security reasons. He certainly understood.
The television reports angered him. He saw footage of bombed cars, day after day. Grim reports of U.S. deaths. He wondered: Why didn't they ever show the good work the soldiers were doing?
"He had a hard time enjoying himself," Karin says. "He felt guilty every time."
In between surgeries, he and Karin embarked on a four-day trip to Switzerland and Austria. How could he relax? He was supposed to be in Iraq, keeping the squadron running smoothly and the soldiers safe so he could bring them back home, so he could fulfill the promise he had made to all those families.
"How can you be in Austria and Switzerland with your wife, living in nice places, eating nice food and enjoying yourself when your guys are over there in Iraq, and you have no idea what's going on with them?"
Karin understood.
"We didn't plan any more trips after that."
No debate
They didn't even discuss it.
The Rock was returning to Iraq, to the battlefield, as soon as his doctors and the U.S. Army would allow it.
"With me, it wasn't a matter of if," he says. "It was a matter of how soon."
Karin says her friend, Linnette Miller, the widow of Marvin, couldn't understand it. Karin remembers her asking, "Why would you let him go back?"
Others asked the same thing, including U.S. Department of Defense officials and members of Jurgersen's own unit.
"I think there were more people telling me not to go back than there was telling me to go back," he says.
Their message: You don't have to do this.
His response: Yes, I do.
End of debate.
Karin knew. She had been there the night Jurgersen promised to bring the troops home safely. She knew how much the deaths of Miller, Campbell and others weighed on him.
Losing Andy Houghton was a terrible blow.
Capt. Andrew Houghton, 25, of Houston was badly injured July 10, 2004, when a rocket-propelled grenade struck near his vehicle. Friends and family members maintained a Web site, charting his progress.
Back in Germany, Jurgersen followed his monthlong struggle. He had great hope, but Houghton died a month later.
The Rock hadn't been there when Houghton was injured, but "I followed his battle to survive and developed a bond only wounded warriors can share," Jurgersen told friends in an e-mail. "I was devastated when he died."
How could he not return?
Karin received e-mails from the wives of soldiers, saying how much safer they felt their husbands were when The Rock was with them.
Cassie accepted her father's return to Iraq. So did Chase. Neither said a word to him about staying home. Jurgersen's parents didn't try to stop him, either. They all knew better.
"It's very hard to understand the military dynamic unless you've been in it," Cassie says. "Truly, it's a brotherhood.
"He's mentioned to me before that most of the men are the same age I am. He looks at them in that light sometimes."
According to the Defense Department, about 8,400 of the more than 15,800 soldiers wounded in Iraq returned to duty within 72 hours. Others, like Jurgersen, suffered severe wounds and still wanted to return.
To Brent Jurgersen, this was a no-brainer. Those soldiers were his responsibility, his friends. He had made a promise to them and their families.
But it was more than that. He believed in what the United States was doing in Iraq. He thought the soldiers were making life better for the people there.
Karin says she told Linnette Miller about the night The Rock promised the families he would bring everyone home safely. After that, Karin says, Linnette no longer questioned his decision. She, too, understood.
"Those are your guys," Brent Jurgersen explains. "You can't just leave them with someone else. You always think in the back of your head that no one can do the job like you can."
The return
Back in Iraq, Jurgersen's commander, Capt. Paine, felt mixed emotions.
He didn't want to see his friend put back in harm's way. Yet he knew the soldiers needed him.
"Most importantly, he wanted to come back to his soldiers," he says. "That meant more to me than anything, and I know the soldiers admired and revered him for it."
Finally, the doctors approved.
The Army brass also gave the go-ahead.
And so, on Oct. 11, 2004, a mere four months after being shot in the face and nearly dying, 1st Sgt. Brent Jurgersen rejoined his troops in Iraq.
The Rock was back.
He would lead them home.
"I was also very realistic that something else could happen," he says. "It happened to me once. It could happen again."
posted by Former Military Chick | 11:27 PM
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