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A project of the Combat Studies Institute, the Operational Leadership Experiences interview collection archives firsthand, multi-service accounts from military personnel who planned, participated in and supported operations in the Global War on Terrorism.

Interview with MAJ Jeff Struecker

Combat Studies Institute Fort Leavenworth, Kansas UNCLASSIFIED

Abstract

MAJ Jeff Struecker served as a chaplain with the 82nd Airborne Division and Ranger Regiment in multiple places in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 through 2009 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). In this July 2010 interview, MAJ Struecker discusses the challenges of being a chaplain in a combat situation, the benefits his 13 years prior enlisted gave, and the difficulties he faced in being everywhere he felt he needed to be on any given deployment. MAJ Struecker concludes his interview with the observation, "I'll tell you what, I've had a chance to go back and watch some of America's greatest warriors; some of the best warriors that our nation has ever produced and I'm amazed at their resiliency. I'm amazed at their commitment to the cause of freedom. These guys, for the most part, if they've been around the SOC, specifically the JTF since before 9/11, they have not had a break from war since 2001. If you think back on it now, and as a historian you'll understand this, we have not asked that of anybody in the history of our country, certainly not with an all volunteer force. We've forced some people through the draft to do that but we've never done it with an all volunteer force before. It's nothing short of amazing to see. I've sat back and wondered, "Why are these guys continually giving so much? They could go do something much easier and take a break." The conclusion I've come to is that it isn't just patriotism and nationalism but it's the cause of freedom that means so much to them. What's at stake if we don't win is so important to them that they're willing to continue and endure, at this point now, 10 years of persistent conflict. That's something I don't think the average person in our country understands, especially not of that guy who hasn't had a break."

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Interview with MAJ Jeff Struecker 19 July 2010

JF: My name is Jenna Fike (JF) and I'm with the Operational Leadership Experiences Project at the Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I'm interviewing MAJ Jeff Struecker (JS) on his experiences during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Today's date is 19 July 2010 and this is an unclassified interview. Before we begin, if you feel at any time that we're entering classified territory, please couch your response in terms that avoid revealing any classified information, and if classification requirements prevent you from responding, simply say that you're not able to answer. Before we talk about your deployments, can you give a brief history of your background with the Army? JS: Yeah. I have about 23 years of active service. I was an enlisted guy; an Infantryman by trade and spent almost all of my enlisted time -- 13 years -- in the Ranger Regiment. I became an Active Duty Army chaplain about 10 years ago and have served the last 10 years in the 82nd and the Ranger Regiment with a very brief period of time in the Ranger Training Brigade (RTB). JF: What made you decide to move out of Infantry and become a chaplain? JS: That is probably THE most asked question and the short one-word response to that is Somalia. JF: If you'd like, would you expand on that a little bit? JS: I was an enlisted guy in the Ranger Regiment in Bravo Company 3rd Ranger Battalion and I deployed to Somalia as part of Task Force Ranger. I had a very strong faith while I was an Infantryman in the Ranger Regiment and my faith made a very profound difference in how I fought during that firefight. During the events of Black Hawk Down, but more specifically afterwards, God was showing me that he was leading me to do something else with my life. It became ministry and specifically ministry in the military. JF: I can tell from the look on your face but [let me ask], do you enjoy it? JS: Yeah. JF: Are you glad you did it? JS: Yes. JF: Thank you for sharing that. How many deployments in support of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) have you had? JS: I've been deployed to Afghanistan nine times and to Iraq five. JF: That sounds like a really big number. Do you want to explain why it is that you have had so many deployments?

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JS: Yeah. I've deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division on a long deployment to Afghanistan early in GWOT and the rest of my deployments have all been with the Ranger Regiment. Those deployments with the Ranger Regiment, although somewhat shorter in nature, have taken me all over Iraq and Afghanistan. Sometimes when I'm deployed, I'm deployed to both theaters of operation at the same time and sometimes only to one theater of operation. Sometimes it is for a few weeks and just for a specific mission or specific reason and sometimes it's for a specific period of time as part of the joint task force (JTF) over there. JF: Most people who hear, 'deployment,' think one year or 15 months. That's obviously not the case every time. JS: In my case I've been deployed about 40 months. JF: You said you deployed mostly with the 82nd? JS: One long deployment with the 82nd in 2003 to Afghanistan and all of the rest were with the Ranger Regiment. JF: Why don't we talk about that long deployment to Afghanistan first? JS: Sure. JF: When did you first find out that you would be going on that deployment? JS: 2002 and I deployed in January 2003 with 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division. JF: This was the initial [push]? JS: By then the US had been in Afghanistan for about 18 months. The first six months or so we were doing special operations targets and very limited ground engagements. This rotation was called OEF III but really the ground forces in OEF started OEF II in early 2002 and the buildup of ground forces in 2002. We took over in January 2003 until about August of that year. JF: Where in Afghanistan did you serve? JS: At that point one brigade of the 82nd had operational control of the whole country. There was a battalion in the north part of the country who had operational control of the whole north. There was a battalion in the south that had operational control of the entire south. My battalion had operational control of the entire eastern border region of Afghanistan. JF: Where was your headquarters? JS: My headquarters moved around a bit. It started in Khost around Forward Operating Base (FOB) Salerno and from there we moved to Kandahar for a month or two. Eventually we set up shop -- we built up a base in Orgun-e. For the rest of that deployment that was where our battalion headquarters was based out of. The battalion was geographically dispersed across the entire border and my mission was to cover the whole border region. JF: So you were busy. JS: Well, everybody was busy.

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JF: Okay. Can you talk a little about what your battalion's mission was? JS: Yeah. It kind of ranged. We had a company, maybe a company (+) from the 82nd that did operational theater level targets because there really were no big battalion sized targets to hit at that point. I think we did one battalion (-) the entire time we were there. One company remained in a quick reaction force (QRF) mode up north and a company remained in QRF mode down south and they were able to respond to theater wide targets. The rest of the battalion was split into squads, sections, and platoons and they had the FOB security mission for a host of FOBs all along the border. They did continue to patrol and do combat operations but for the most part it was pulling guard and guarding the US FOBs along the borders. JF: Okay. What did you do specifically? JS: As a chaplain I kind of just traveled. Because my battalion had the whole geographical center part and the whole eastern border part of Afghanistan, I kind of just did nothing but travel to all of these bases. I think at that point we only had nine bases along the border and it was my job to cover the entire border region and just travel constantly. I spent two or three days in each location. JF: For people who may not necessarily be familiar, what is the job of the chaplain in a combat situation? JS: That's a good question. In the Army the job of an Army chaplain in a combat situation is to provide the free exercise of religion for all the service members -- Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and the contracted civilians in our area of operations (AO). I specifically do counseling and provide religious services for people who are of my faith. For those that are not of my faith tradition I find them the resources to practice their faith. JF: How many chaplains were there? JS: I'm not sure on the numbers. I think we had a total of 12 chaplains in Afghanistan at the time. Four or five of them belonged to 1st Brigade, 82nd. Those chaplains were kind of geographically located; two in the south in Kandahar, two in the north at Bagram, and me along the border. JF: Again, forgiving the ignorance of a civilian, you were with one battalion? JS: Yes. JF: How many Soldiers and officers is that? JS: In the 82nd at that time the battalion had about 700 or 750. JF: It was just yourself and one other chaplain? JS: No. I'm saying I had the responsibly for the whole border region and my brigade had five chaplains, maybe six but I had the responsibility just for those guy in the center portion of the country.

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JF: Thank you for explaining that. What was your view of the situation when you first arrived? You can talk either living conditions or threat conditions. JS: The living conditions were -- well, being a Soldier in combat I can't complain about the living conditions. They are what they are. The threat was a bit disappointing. In Afghanistan the people of the Hindu Kush have fought the same way for the last couple thousand years. We relieved 3rd Brigade, 82nd in early January 2003. They had done some great combat operations in the late summer or early fall but their operational tempo (OPTEMPO) started to drop off. I didn't understand it at the time; I kind of became aware of it after I talked to people who had been around for a while and specifically guys who had been around Afghanistan for a while. When we arrived there there wasn't a lot of action going on and I kind of didn't understand why there wasn't so much action going on. Now, after many deployments to Afghanistan I realize that during the winter months the Taliban/Al Qaeda/foreign fighters generally go to ground because most of their maneuvering and movements are done by roads. Most of those roads, especially in the extraordinarily mountainous regions, the roads get snowed in and they get snowed in around late November or early December. Those snows don't melt until late February or early March; sometimes as late as early April. There isn't a lot of movement and because there isn't a lot of movement there isn't a lot of fighting. The first couple of months there were very monotonous and that can be a killer on morale. I didn't understand. I assumed the entire combat deployment would be monotonous like that. By the time the snow started to melt and by the time they were moving around the country more frequently. We started to get into some pretty good fire fights. The action picked up and it stayed that way the whole summer. JF: For that period of time when there wasn't a lot going on, you said it was a morale killer. How do you combat that? JS: I said it could be a morale killer but in our case I don't think it was. We were so geographically isolated and guys had so much responsibility. You had a squad, section, or platoon that had the responsibility of guarding an entire base. They didn't have a free minute in their schedule. It was 12 hours of sleep, 12 hours of guard, 12 hours of sleep, 12 hours of guard no matter what the enemy was doing. If the enemy throws something at you then it's no sleep and 12 hours of guard. For those guys the morale wasn't that bad but on other deployments later on, especially during the winter months those deployments became brutally monotonous. You asked me the question about mitigating the morale impact but I don't feel the responsibility to necessarily affect the morale of the unit as much as I do the responsibility to give the commander a feel for what the morale climate is at the time. I tried to keep my commander as much informed as possible. Given that I was traveling all over the country, literally, and seeing people all over his battalion that he didn't get a chance to see for the most part the entire operation. When I returned back I'd let my commander know what was going on in one location and how guys were doing in another location. I'd let him know what the living conditions were at one compared to another. JF: I wasn't actually asking you to complain necessarily about the living conditions -- JS: The question about morale is a bit of a touchy subject among chaplains. Some chaplains feel it's their responsibility to increase or bolster the morale of the unit. I don't feel it is. I feel it's my responsibility to keep the commander aware of the morale in the unit. It's his job to bolster the morale of the unit if necessary. The living conditions are what they are.

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JF: We hear that quite a bit actually [Laughter]. You said you did a lot of traveling. How was that? JS: In Afghanistan you don't move by roads. You still don't move by road unless you absolutely have to because the road networks are so poor. All of the travel is done by air and in those days it was kind of the Wild Wild West. This was before Iraq kicked off and this was the only fight going and everybody who was over there was thrilled to be over there. The war was still new and shiny. As a result, if I needed to get a ride somewhere and there was a helicopter flying, I don't think I ever once had someone tell me I could not get on an airplane and go somewhere I wanted to go. The travel was difficult in that when the snows rolled in and when storms settled over the passes we didn't have any aircraft -- rotary wing aircraft -- that could get over those passes. There were times when I got stuck someplace for two weeks waiting for a storm to move out of the pass before I could move again. I showed up with two days worth of supplies on me and ended up staying for something like two weeks. The availability of travel was great; I can't complain. JF: But the travel itself could sometimes be hairy? JS: Yeah, it's challenging. I've often told people who are going to Afghanistan for their first time that travel in the country of Afghanistan is like quantum physics, especially in the winter months. You have to plan not just your next move but three or four moves in advance. If your next move gets thrown out of whack you may be staying somewhere for a month longer than you expected to stay somewhere. That can be devastating operationally speaking. JF: You said the threat conditions ramped up once the weather cleared a little bit. How did that change your day to day routine? JS: For my Soldiers it didn't. For me it actually really didn't either; I continued to do my thing as a chaplain. My Soldiers started to patrol a little more often so they spent more time out of the FOB and did more dismounted and mounted presence patrols along the FOBs to try and mitigate enemy in their immediate vicinity. I'll tell you, rocket and mortar attacks increased exponentially to the point where there were two or three rocket or mortar attacks a couple of nights a week. On some of those remote FOBs obviously many of those rocket and mortar attacks were launched across the border. Those two or three rocket or mortar attacks became five or six rocket or mortar attacks. Instead of two or three rockets it became 20 or 40 rockets once the snow started to melt. That was a noticeable increase in enemy activity. The mission of the guys in my unit didn't change for the most part. We did a couple of big operations after we saw a bigger presence of Taliban and Al Qaeda in the area. JF: I'm not sure how to ask this question but your perspective seems to be unique. You spent 12 years on Active Duty in the Infantry, correct? JS: Yes. JF: And then you came over to be a chaplain. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are there a lot of chaplains who have that kind of experience before they come in? JS: I don't know what the percentage is now but I think we have a great deal of Army chaplains who have some prior military experience; today may be different. When I became an Active Duty chaplain before 9/11 and GWOT I don't know if a dozen chaplains who had combat

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 7 UNCLASSIFIED experience, period. But that was true of the Army in 2000. I think less than 10 or 20 percent of the Army had combat experience. For me the significant difference was not that I was an Infantryman, although I was an Infantryman before I became a chaplain and I was a chaplain in an Infantry battalion so those things came very natural for me. What was different, and I think my Soldiers realized this -- and I think my Soldiers realized this in both the 82nd and certainly in the Ranger Regiment -- is that I had combat experience. That made a big difference for me. JF: You certainly do, for obvious reasons, have a very good grasp on operations. You get what they're doing. That has to help with your job. JS: I have some advantages, some luxuries of having so much operational experience throughout my career. I don't have to work as hard as the average chaplain to find out what's going on around me. I know what's going on around me. I generally can figure that out within five minutes of walking into a tactical operations center (TOC) or five minutes of walking into a new FOB. Other chaplains tend to have to work really hard on that. This is an aside and I don't know if anybody is interested in this, but I have to consciously not try to think operationally as a chaplain. When I'm in a theater of operations I have to focus on my mission as a chaplain or else if I'm not careful I'll slip back into the operational success of the mission and that's really not my role any more. I have to consciously make sure I don't do that. JF: I was actually going to ask that question. JS: It's something I have to remain vigilant about. JF: It must be very difficult at times. JS: Biting my tongue is something I have to remain careful about. Its one thing to make constructive criticism about a future operation but it's a whole other thing when that constructive criticism comes from a chaplain. I really have to bite my tongue sometimes. I've realized that if personal safety and lives are not on the line than I probably don't need to make a comment. I'll just let it go. JF: Can you think of a specific instance where your prior experience helped you to do your job? Aside from the obvious operational issues? JS: Yes. As a chaplain one of my biggest responsibilities is to be able to relate to my unit. God has given me an enormous privilege of having the combat experience I've had. When I go into a unit for the first time -- in fact, if I go into a combat arms unit many people recognize my name from the book or the movie Black Hawk Down. I don't have to try and earn people's credibility. In some cases it's given to me whether I deserve it or not. That's a privilege but with that comes a tremendous amount of responsibility because I realize that I can let a lot of people down, too. They have expectations of me because of who I was as an Infantry guy and a Ranger before I became a chaplain. That's a delicate balance for me. I have to carry that responsibility seriously. JF: Is credibility of chaplains an issue, generally speaking? JS: I don't know; I really can't speak for other chaplains. I will tell you that I don't know how you can be an effective minister in the military if you don't have credibility. Army chaplains say, "We value what you do for our country enough that we're willing to live through the same

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 8 UNCLASSIFIED hardships and endure the same dangers with you." That in essence buys credibility. What causes a Soldier to come talk to a chaplain is that he believes the chaplain understands him. If he [feels the chaplain] doesn't understand him, 95 percent of the time that Soldier won't go talk to a chaplain. He'll find a friend to talk to. A friend may not give him the best advice but he'll talk to a friend just because he understands him. As a chaplain with credibility I would hope your Soldiers would go talk to you. They would certainly show up and listen to hear what I have to say when I teach a bible study or I deliver chapel service. There is a degree of responsibility that goes along with that too. JF: You've talked about this a little bit, but what were some of the most difficult challenges to overcome on this deployment? JS: This was my first long deployment. All of my deployments prior to that were as an enlisted guy in the Ranger Regiment and they were all short-term in nature. Operation Just Cause in Panama, Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait, and Gothic Serpent in Somalia. All of those were short in duration and at the time I was an Infantryman, a squad or team leader, and I had guys I was responsible for. I kept my mind occupied by focusing on my mission every day and by remembering my responsibilities to my subordinates. At this time I had a chaplain's assistant that I was responsible for. That's kind of a luxury. This guy was very competent and he could take care of himself very well so I didn't need to give him a lot of guidance or direction. We worked exceptionally well as a team but that gave me a lot of free time on my hands, free time I'd never had before as an Infantry guy in a combat zone. Part of my challenge was to keep myself focused, operationally focused, and to keep myself motivated. The morale of the chaplain does have an impact on the unit. JF: I would think so. What did you do to keep yourself motivated and focused? JS: I'm a bit of a historian so I read a great deal. Not just theological books but I read about what was at stake during OEF as well about our founding fathers and the separation they went through; the hardships and deprivation and their motivations for going through those things. Why would they stake their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor? Those things helped motivate me. JF: Did you find that you had anything in common? Any of the same motivations? JS: Oh, yeah. I found there were a couple of founding fathers that I really resonated with. That made a profound difference for me on multiple deployments. I'm specifically talking about John Adams. JF: Is there any major event from this deployment to Afghanistan that stands out that you'd like to talk about? JS: Not really. We went through what the average unit went through. We lost some guys during a couple of really good firefights. Some of the frustrations on that deployment remained with me over the course of time. They were kind of operational frustrations and I'm not sure how much I want to get into those. As far as major events -- one of the pivotal events was the first big firefight we had when two of our guys were killed. An Air Force guy and an Army guy were killed in the same firefight and then several senior leaders and higher ranking members of the unit were wounded and eventually had to leave the theater of operations. That firefight was a

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 9 UNCLASSIFIED few months into it -- I think it was around late March or early April -- and it caught a lot of people off guard and it really unsettled a lot of people. That kind of shocked me a bit and what shocked me was how unprepared emotionally and psychologically our unit was for the death of some of our Soldiers. I don't know if that's because we had such a slow pace moving up to that point -- the point when the snow started to melt and the enemy started to move and we were getting a lot more action. Or was it that they hadn't deployed prepared to lose people. I'd never been on a combat deployment prior to that where we didn't lose people. It was my expectation that some men from my unit we were going to die. I expected that ahead of time, but some of the leaders from my unit didn't and that caught me off guard. One of the things I had to do was help them get in the right frame of mind. "This is combat. Men are going to die. You can be the greatest leader and the best planner in the world but there is nothing you can do about that." I have to help some of these guys see that, "If you left here thinking they wouldn't die, you left with unrealistic expectations." JF: It sounds weird to say this about Army leadership but do you think it's possible that they just didn't want to have to think about it? JS: I think to some degree there was some pressure. The expectation that we can go to war and fight a war with the technology and military genius we have; we can fight a very sterile war where men don't have to die any more. I hope by now that that bubble has burst. I think part of it was that. I think we had a culture where we would do everything we could to mitigate risk. That meant that if I did my job well enough as a planner nobody would have to die. All of those things at face value are true but they fail to take the enemy into account. I don't think anybody from the Vietnam generation or anyone from Korea or World War II would have ever thought as a commander that, "I'm going to war and all of my men are coming back with me." I think we had not just one but many, many commanders at the start of OEF and probably at the start of OIF who thought, "I'm going to war and all of my men are coming back with me." I don't know how the system allowed them to get to the point where they could make those kinds of unrealistic expectations. JF: What did you do to help them through the losses? JS: I had to pull some commanders off to the side and talk to them personally. I had to talk to my unit. I think the memorial ceremonies helped them. They didn't just help them go through the grieving process but warriors need to know that it's an honorable thing for a warrior to give his life in the defense of his country. The way we handled the memorial ceremony over there gave the proper respect to those guys but it also woke everybody else up to the fact that this is a dangerous situation and none of us may make it of there alive; we may but we may not. JF: After the initial shock do you think that everybody handled it better the next time? JS: Yeah. I think at that point everybody was more realistic, especially given the senior leaders who were severely wounded. I think those things really caught some people off guard. The only other thing that I think was operationally significant was that that brigade from the 82nd deployed thinking we were going to be deployed for an X amount of time. That X amount of time got changed about six times over the course of the deployment. Nobody knew it at the time but that was because OIF was getting ready to kick off. Everybody who was going to replace us now got pulled to OIF which meant, what happens to the combat forces currently in

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Afghanistan? The answer to that question was, "You hold what you got until we can free somebody up in Iraq to come replace them." Nobody, to include the brigade commander, saw that one coming. I don't think anybody, even at the highest level, saw that one coming. The problem was that that date got moved about a dozen times. If it would have been moved once or twice I think it would have been no big deal for the average guy in the unit. For the families it would have been tough but they would have dealt with it. Moving that date about a dozen times became brutal on everybody, to include family members. JF: That would be very hard. How long did you end up staying? JS: We thought we were going to be there for about five months and we ended up being there for about eight. JF: Which wouldn't have been bad if it hadn't been for the continual extensions. JS: If it had been one time, "Hey, you're going to be here for three more months." Instead it was, "Two more weeks." Then, "Two more weeks." Then, "Four more weeks." JF: I've heard that from other people and it got all the way up how awful that was. I think measures have been taken -- JS: Yeah, I think we're well beyond that now. Had anybody at the highest levels just said, "We don't know. Expect to be here until December." That would have been helpful. JF: [Laughter] Sure. Anything really, other than what happened. When did you head back home? JS: I got back in late August. I think the brigade closed back in the last week of August or the first week of September. JF: You've had multiple other deployments, but because of the nature of them and from what you've said it would probably be confusing and not terribly helpful to talk about them one at a time. If you could just -- JS: I can lump them all into some broad categories. JF: There we go. JS: My deployments in the Ranger Regiment were part of a JTF. Those deployments are all over the country of Iraq and all over the country of Afghanistan. Some of them were only to Afghanistan. Some of them were only to Iraq. For the most part, they were kind of predictable and they were routine. I knew when I was going and when I was coming back. On a couple of occasions, however, my unit was pulled out of the normal routine and sent to a specific country for a specific reason for an undisclosed period of time until we accomplished X. "Go over to this country and this location and when you accomplish X, we'll send you back." Nobody knew how long it was going to be and that was really tough on families. We also knew that we were still in the rotation and still coming back over [to Iraq or Afghanistan] here a few months later. "If it takes us two months to do or five months to do or two weeks to do, we're still scheduled to be back over here X amount of months from now." Those missions were kind of challenging in that it was for a specific purpose at a specific time but for an undisclosed amount of time that it took

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 11 UNCLASSIFIED you to accomplish X. They were also unexpected. That meant that my family had a chance to prepare themselves for all of my deployments in the Ranger Regiment but with those it was just a phone call. One time it was, "Hey, your leave has been cut short. You need to come back immediately. Get your stuff in your ISU 90s. We're leaving by X date." Another time I showed back up and my unit said, "Hey, the last aircraft is leaving on X date, can you be ready?" That meant my family had no time to prepare for it emotionally. Those kinds of out of the norm rotations and missions were very challenging. One of the good points about being deployed in my mind as part of the Ranger Regiment is that the Ranger Regiment has a very specific mission and a very specific skill set that's set against a very specific target set for a very specific mission. Much of what goes on with the regular conventional forces -- those guys in the Ranger Regiment don't have to do. They don't have to pull guard for 12 hours a day waiting for their next shift tomorrow for 12 more hours just hoping to get some sleep in the middle. Because in most cases those deployments are short in nature and the skill set is specific, they don't get sent on targets that really don't have the operational and strategic value. You're not sent to go find X. It's more, "We know X is over there, go take care of X for us." At that point the Ranger Regiment was deploying to both theaters of operation; Afghanistan and Iraq. They weren't just located in one or two locations in both theaters of operation. They were spread all over both countries at the same time and generally one battalion would do both countries at the same time. My mission for many of those deployments was to cover all of Afghanistan and all of Iraq at the same time. I noticed that for the most part we were the only task force in the Department of Defense that was operating in both theaters of operation which made traveling between Afghanistan and Iraq very challenging. Within Iraq or Afghanistan anything went. If I needed something I could get it. If we didn't have it I could borrow it from somebody else and they would get me where I needed to go. I could move pretty easily within country but on many of those deployments I would spend a certain number of weeks in Afghanistan, travel over to Iraq for a number of weeks, travel back to Afghanistan for a number of weeks, and then return back to the United States; redeploy. It was the travel between the countries that made it challenging. What also made it challenging was that as a chaplain it was my responsibility to minister to guys who were in 17 locations in one country and nine locations in another country. There is no possible way, even if I spent one night in each location, that I could possibly hit all of them on a regular basis. I made it my mission to find anybody who could provide religious support to my guys. Whenever possible I tried to find help from the Army, Navy, or Air Force chaplains in my area of operations (AO) who would be willing to provide some counseling or perform some religious services for guys who were geographically close to them. JF: Just a couple of quick questions. It sounds like you guys were very much a quick reaction force (QRF). They weren't calling you that. What is the difference between a task force and a QRF? JS: The JTF the Ranger Regiment was a part of sort of had that mission so to speak for the theater level commander but in reality it wasn't a QRF as much as it was a quick strike force for a specific set of targets. When those targets presented themselves we had 30 minutes to an hour to plan for the mission, get on the aircraft, and go; figure it out when you get on the ground. That kept everybody hyper-vigilant. That's where the old adage of -- and I can't remember whose quote this is but, "Combat is weeks of sheer, stark boredom punctuated by moments of extraordinary terror." In the winter months in Afghanistan that's really what you have. Two or three weeks of never getting a phone call only to get a phone call and to do everything possible

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 12 UNCLASSIFIED to go hit a target followed by another two or three weeks of nothing going on. Rangers keep themselves occupied by training; by doing dangerous, difficult training. If there were no missions to go on they would just find some dangerous training to do to keep themselves entertained, so to speak. JF: You said these were sometimes very short deployments. How short are you talking? JS: I think the shortest deployment I did was three weeks with them and the longest deployment I did was about five months. They ranged anywhere between that spectrum. The three-week thing was a specific target set. JF: You said that even in five months they could be in 17 different locations? That's a lot! JS: In five months it would be 17 locations in one country and nine locations in another country so more like 26 locations. JF: That's an incredible amount of travel. JS: Yeah. One of the other challenges I was going to mention is that as a chaplain for that battalion having geographical responsibility for both countries for 17 locations in one and nine in another -- if something happened in Iraq when I was in Afghanistan I felt like, "Man. I made a mistake. I should have stayed in Iraq a little bit longer." If I was in Iraq when something happened in Afghanistan I felt like I let my guys down by not being there when something went on. The Ranger Regiment put an enormous amount of trust in me to be in the right spot at the right time. I had commanders the entire time I was assigned there and deployed with them who gave me carte blanche access to anything I wanted and freedom to go anywhere I wanted whenever I wanted, but their trust was that they expected me to be in the right place at the right time. It was my job to know where the right place at the right time was going to be and sometimes I got that wrong and that weighed heavy on my shoulders. It took my wife Dawn, and friends to help me see that no one could possibly be in all of those places at the same time. So, if I lost a guy in Iraq one night and I was in Afghanistan I would travel over to Iraq to try and see him. As soon as I got to Iraq somebody died in Afghanistan. I started feeling bad because I missed that. There was just no way you could be in all of those places at once. JF: What kind of assistance did you have? Were there other chaplains with the [Ranger] Regiment or was it just you? JS: Yes, but at the time I was the only guy deployed. At the time the Ranger Regiment only has people who can successfully complete their assessment and selection process. I went almost three years without a chaplain's assistant; just me, by myself. Though there were some other chaplains as part of the JTF and if I was in one country they would stay in the other and kind of help out. None of them had the responsibility to travel around as much as I did but they helped. If I needed to I could pick up the phone and call them and say, "Hey, I need you to go check on my guys. They just lost somebody last night." That still weighs on my shoulders unlike it does on theirs. JF: So you had roughly 14 deployments over five years. JS: Actually it wasn't five years. It was from 2003 until 2009; six years.

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JF: Even though these are short deployments it had to be wearing on your family. JS: Yeah. My friends who have been in conventional forces and never assigned to the Special Operations Command (SOC) and deploy on the schedule we're on often compare [our deployments]. "I've done one long 15-month deployment. You've done three five-month deployments." They'll say, "My deployment was harder than yours." I always remind them, "Look. I never get into the 'who had it worse' discussion. 15 months deployed is 15 months deployed. You did 15 months at one shot; I've done three five month deployments. It's apples and oranges. It's not the same thing." What I do have to remind my friends about sometimes is that the Ranger Regiment also has the mission of responding to anything theater-wide in either country that needed a joint strike force to respond overnight. That unit was probably going to be the Ranger Regiment. That meant there was never a break; the operational pace never let up. Even if I had just come back two weeks earlier from a deployment, if something came up and it was big and it needed somebody to respond to, I knew I was going to end up going with no notice. I use this analogy to my friends, "Being assigned to the Ranger Regiment for that long of a period of time and deploying that much, even when I was back I never really left Afghanistan or Iraq. Every day in my office I'm checking what's happening knowing that tomorrow I could be there." Although I try to shield my family from this as much as possible it was always like there was a dark cloud on the horizon and it wouldn't be long before it was over my head again. I think this is probably true of everybody in that JTF; you never really separate yourself, even if you're not deployed. You never really separate yourself from the fight in Afghanistan or Iraq. You don't have the luxury to. JF: You really can't because it would take you too long to get back into it. JS: Tomorrow, when I show back up there, I need to know that when I step off that aircraft that I know what's going on and why it's going on. You don't have the luxury when you're back at home station. Even when you're on leave you don't have the luxury of divorcing yourself from the war. Other guys who do a 15-month deployment and are back for 24 months -- they can divorce themselves from the war for a period of time before you start spinning up again. JF: In some ways it was almost like you were on a six-year deployment but you got to go back home. JS: Yeah, but I got to go back home and sleep with my family. For me the challenge was protecting my family from that. I have to deal with the operational stress but I my wife and our five children don't have to. I do as much as I can to protect them from it. JF: Was there any major event outstanding from these deployments that you'd like to talk about? I'm sure there were many of them; good ones are okay to talk about as well. JS: We hit some targets and captured some really important people to the overall success of the operations. Man, it's good to go home and know that we captured some guys who are really going to turn this around. We also did some deployments where some really traumatic events happened. I don't think this is confidential any more but I was the battalion chaplain in 2nd Battalion when Pat Tillman was killed. I was deployed to Afghanistan at the same time and that was a brutal event for everybody; not just because of his death but because of who he was and how he was killed. There were interviews and investigations that were ongoing for years as a

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 14 UNCLASSIFIED result of that. That has stayed with me probably longer than anything. I had good friends who were in the Ranger Regiment whose careers were brought to an abrupt halt as the result of [that incident]. That stuck with me for a long time. Some of the joys of being in that unit is seeing how exceptionally competent that joint strike force is and their ability to hit targets and capture some really important bad guys who you knew were going to have a profound impact on the overall success of the entire operation; of all of OIF and all of OEF. JF: It seems like your unit would have to be phenomenally successful to get deployed that many times. It sounds like you were sent out on just about every -- JS: It wasn't just my battalion; it was the Ranger Regiment. The Ranger Regiment has had about 60 percent or more of its forces deployed since October of 2001 and it hasn't let up. I don't think it will let up until we're finally successful in both Iraq and Afghanistan. JF: It seems like sort of an odd reward to get sent over and over again because you keep doing it right. JS: It's called performance punishment. When you're good, everybody wants you. JF: [Laughter] Okay. Based on any of your deployments do you have a recommendation on things that could be done a little bit better? JS: Are you talking operationally? JF: No, I don't think you should talk operationally. Maybe you can talk about anything that could be done to make your job as the chaplain easier or are they giving you all the support you need? JS: That's a tough question. If I thought it could have been done better I would have done it better on the second, seventh, or the ninth deployment. Operationally, I have my opinions but I don't think I want to discuss them. The way our forces are deployed -- what they do, how they do it, and stuff like that -- if I thought I could be done better I had the intestinal fortitude to tell my commanders to their faces -- even if it had nothing to do with me as a chaplain. After a mission was over with and I thought, "Hey, we didn't do that one as well as we should and I think we can do something better," I would have told my commander to his face. He knew and I knew that we were going to go do it again soon anyway so this was a chance to fix what we didn't do so well the last time. That's a bit of a tough question for me. JF: Is there any particular lesson learned or observation you'd like to highlight that we haven't talked about? JS: I'll tell you what, I've had a chance to go back and watch some of America's greatest warriors; some of the best warriors that our nation has ever produced and I'm amazed at their resiliency. I'm amazed at their commitment to the cause of freedom. These guys, for the most part, if they've been around the SOC, specifically the JTF since before 9/11, they have not had a break from war since 2001. If you think back on it now, and as a historian you'll understand this, we have not asked that of anybody in the history of our country, certainly not with an all volunteer force. We've forced some people through the draft to do that but we've never done it with an all volunteer force before. It's nothing short of amazing to see. I've sat back and

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 15 UNCLASSIFIED wondered, "Why are these guys continually giving so much? They could go do something much easier and take a break." The conclusion I've come to is that it isn't just patriotism and nationalism but it's the cause of freedom that means so much to them. What's at stake if we don't win is so important to them that they're willing to continue and endure, at this point now, 10 years of persistent conflict. That's something I don't think the average person in our country understands, especially not of that guy who hasn't had a break. JF: Okay. I think that's a great place to stop. Thank you very much for your time today and thank you for your service. JS: You're welcome.

END OF INTERVIEW

Transcribed by Jenn Vedder

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