The Shepherd of Jalalabad

By Chaplain (Maj) D. W. Hughes USA RET.

United States Army Chaplains are oftentimes one of the greatest unsung heroes in military combat operations overseas. “The Shepherd of Jalalabad” gives the reader a behind the scenes look at the bravery, religious passion, dedication and heroism of one Army Chaplain’s combat experiences during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. This unique perspective is the story of Chaplain Hughes’ preparation, deployment and return from war. It also describes in detail his own personal struggles that followed; dealing with post-traumatic stress and the post-combat reintegration with his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781664290884

Chaplain (Maj) D. W. Hughes USA RET.

Chaplain Hughes joined the U.S. Army Chaplaincy in May of 2008 and was baptized by fire as a combat chaplain during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2009. After serving in Baghdad, he was deployed with the 4th Infantry Division, 4th Brigade Combat Team to Jalalabad, Afghanistan in 2012. During his deployments he was awarded the Combat Action Badge, the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart.

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INTRODUCTION

FIRST DAY IN IRAQ; WAIT, WHAT?

When Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the Promised Land. God said, If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt. So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea. Thus the Israelites left Egypt like an army ready for battle.¹

Sweat was literally streaming down my face. I had already sweated through my Army Combat Uniform (ACUs) and it was now soaking into the Kevlar digitized cover that surrounding my kit, even soaking through the sides of my leather desert combat boots. I was positive that we were still several thousand feet up in the air. It should have been somewhat cooler, but instead, we were roasting. I remember sitting in the back of that C-130, listening to the drone of those huge four-propped engines, my bulky rucksack sitting on my lap as I sat there in a slight bounce in full battle rattle. It was both miserably, and uncomfortably hot. On top of that, the Air Force had had us packed in like sardines. At the time I was just thankful that I had grabbed a seat near the outer shell of the aircraft, one that was up against the fuselage and not in the tightly packed rows in the center of the plane. Those guys looked positively wretched. One of the Air Force pilots, or crew members announced over what I guess was an intercom and told us that they were going to have to do a combat landing into Iraq, and we would be landing in just a few minutes. I will never forget it. At just about the precise moment that guy stopped talking, and without any warning the aircraft nosed right on over in what seemed to me to be pretty darn near a 75-degree angle. Every soldier in that plane just lunged forward, and over the roar of the motors I could still hear the chorus of Ugghs. Hopefully, I thought, with a slight tinge of panic, those Air Force guys know what they are doing, especially since we were headed for some blacked-out airfield in the distant desert night. As an aviator, I was thinking to myself that the pitch of this aircraft was presently way too steep to make a safe landing. Then to my utter surprise and what seemed like just a matter of seconds, our aircraft’s nose pitched violently up, the pilot then leveled us off, and with shouts and whistles from the soldiers on board we safely, though forcefully slammed down onto the tarmac at Baghdad International Airport.

As I was mumbling to myself about the poor piloting skills of the guy at the front of the plane, I slowly looked to my right. Sitting to my immediate right was my chaplain’s assistant. He had been deployed in a somewhat similar area just a short two years before with another infantry battalion with the Second Infantry Division. His unit had based out of Camp Taji, not too far by Blackhawk helicopter from where we would be based this deployment. After we started turning right, then left, and right again, I realized it was going take a while to taxi to our drop-off point. He was just sitting there smiling at me while casually chewing on a mouthful of bubble gum. His smile grew bigger as he looked at me intently, sweat rolling down his face. That look. I thought I had seen it before. Oh, ok, got it, we soldiers understood it. It was to be perceived by me as a typical army response. It was when a soldier is trying to convey something of an unspoken message to another soldier. His look silently communicated to me immediately after our mutually shared rough combat landing, Been there, done that.

I was glad to have him along. He was a seasoned combat veteran and would serve as my chaplain’s assistant for this year-long rotation. We were to be positioned in the downtown section of Baghdad near Kadhimiya. His skill and experience were reassuring to me, a chaplain on my first Unit Ministry Team (UMT) deployment, sent without a weapon of my own. Together we would serve as a part of Fourth Stryker Brigade of the Second Infantry Division out of Fort Lewis, Washington. However, in our Stryker Brigade, we were a part of 2-12 Field Artillery with the complement of an infantry platoon. This deployment, we would affectionately be referred as Infantillery.

My chaplain’s assistant and I had already spent well over a week in Kuwait acclimating to the heat, getting our sleep cycles on a new time zone, and even though most of our missions would be Infantry-esque, our battalion spent each day getting our M-777 howitzers up to speed by firing them in the field. The battalion honed their skills and readied themselves to enter combat once again. We had completed plenty of ranges while in Kuwait. Our guys fired both their M-4 machine guns in close quarters marksmanship (CQM) while also firing their triple-seven howitzers.

Arriving in Baghdad would be a totally new experience for me, this experience of serving downrange as a chaplain. Even though I had seen and experienced the effects of war in a jungle environment after Operation Just Cause in Panama, I quickly realized that this was going to require a whole new skill set for me. Not only was I not personally flying an aircraft in my assigned combat zone, but I was also a noncombatant without possession of my own personal weapon. That in and of itself was a brand-new reality for me. I was now here in Iraq, and positionally by my endorsement as a chaplain I was to be the pastor and shepherd for the men and women of my unit. I was resolved in my heart to rest in the Lord, so with my unwavering faith in Him and a humble reliance on my seasoned chaplain’s assistant, I had a calm assurance that all would be well.

The aircraft was finally coming to a halt, and I heard the pilot throw the engines in reverse as the C-130 began to shudder and slow down to a stop on the flight line. Thankfully, even before the plane came to a complete stop, the aircrew was already lowering the rear cargo ramp door to get us some semblance of a breeze. They were hoping to try and get some sort of circulation of air into our sweltering cargo bay. What was amazing to me was that as soon as the back ramp started lowering itself, I could see the lights of the airport. I thought to myself that this didn’t quite make sense in a combat zone. What about blackouts, I thought, so rockets couldn’t accurately aim at distant lit targets? One of the air crew that was standing near the back of the plane and still plugged into the intercom system was waving his arms in an upward movement. He motioned for us to stand up and turn, turn towards the rear of the aircraft, and get off the aircraft as fast as we could. We all stood up, and in single file lines down each side of the plane began shuffling down the ramp, our gear either clutched in our arms, or strapped, or slung over our backs. The moment I stepped off the ramp, I distinctly heard what appeared to be a loud continuous Brrrrrrt. I can only describe it that way. We filed out of the aircraft like bow-legged cowboys carrying our gear, then quickly scrambled to get underneath some overhead cover. Others were strategically positioned outside the plane, motioning at us with light batons to keep us moving. It was tempting to stop and stare at our new and freakish surroundings, but we needed to get our butts off the tarmac.

I can remember stepping off the ramp of that plane and feeling the heat of Iraq hit me square in the face. Several months later, while getting a rare opportunity to talk to my wife Melissa on the phone, she asked me what exactly the heat was like where I presently stood. I told her the best and probably only way I could describe it would be to hold up a blow dryer at arm’s length with the setting set on the hottest and highest temperature, and let that thing blow directly in your face. Then while it’s blowing full blast, take your left hand and occasionally toss up little bits of sand to mix in with the blowing heat. For me, Iraq’s heat was nothing short of torment.

As I was now quickly range-walking (not fully running and not quite walking) across the flight line, I still had my rucksack strapped around my chest and a duffel bag over my shoulders, clinging to my sweat-drenched back. I still had that bulky Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV) body armor on along with my helmet and was holding my smaller Alice pack in my right hand. Some folks were running now, and my chaplain’s assistant raised his voice a bit saying, Come on Sir as another Brrrrrt continued somewhere on the horizon. We started into a quick jog, then a near-sprint across the tarmac. It looked as if everyone was trying to reach the closest building. Not only the army soldiers, but also everyone in and around the plane as well. I was keeping up the pace while simultaneously looking left to right, peering up and down the perimeter of the airport. The buildings lit up by the airfield lights gave the whole place a sort of gloomy aura. The weather wasn’t foggy, but the air seemingly shrouded and covered the whole airport was just dusty. I thought to myself, wow, there was so much dirt in the air here. I could feel it start to cake up in my nose before I even reached the opening to the door of the building we were running to.

We got inside, and everyone found a bit of space to drop their gear while the company first sergeants came around and collected our ID cards to log us into country. We sat through a few short briefings, and as always, some hurry up and wait idle time followed. I began to get my bearings in the building, and as I looked out the window near the entrance door, everything outside was now absolutely blacked out except for several yellow, dimly lit streetlights on the other side of the airfield.

After a while, some air force tech sergeant stood on a bench, looked over the crowd and yelled out, Listen Up! Through the double doors behind me are the rest of your duffle bags. When you get your ID cards back, you can move to that room and start searching for the rest of your gear. So, just like we were instructed and after getting my ID card back, my chaplain’s assistant and I, along with the rest of the guys began immediately looking and searching for our additional duffle bags. Each one of us had a B and a C or Bravo and Charlie bag somewhere in a huge pile along with the other hundred or so soldiers standing around the perimeter of that huge room. So, there I was at age 48, maxed out in full battle rattle with my rucksack across my chest, a duffel on my back and now, besides my smaller A Alice pack in my right hand, I was dragging yet another duffel. In my left hand I was dragging a third duffel by the neck where it locked at the top. Inside all that army moveable storage was everything Uncle Sam thought I would need for a year-long deployment to Iraq. What really helped us find all our gear, (my chaplain assistant’s previous experience coming into play here) is we had marked all of our duffel bags with foot-long pieces of tough white engineer’s cloth tape. We had securely tied and knotted it around the buckle found at the top of each bag. That stuff was going nowhere regardless of what the Air Force might do to our bags. We had made some stencils with our titles at the Training Aid Support Center (TSC) before we left Fort Lewis and then stenciled the word Chaplain, or Chaplain’s Assistant on our bag’s cloth engineer tape. That way, with each bag’s stenciled red tag it was super easy for us to find our bags. Having thought ahead days before we left Fort Lewis, he had already foreseen this problem and remedied it by coming up with this ingenious solution. Our bags now lay amid the hundreds of other bags that were being offloaded from the aircraft and left in a huge pile in the building.

We had pre-arranged to meet our battalion supply sergeant, an E-5 sergeant who had arrived in Baghdad a couple of weeks prior. Battalions often split up the unit, and then deploy in various phases. Our supply sergeant was of medium height, with blonde hair that was trimmed up high and tight in a typical military cut. He was a good kid, easy-going, and to me embodied the quintessential American E-5 sergeant. Just another young man who was down-to- earth, who really cared about the well-being of his unit’s chaplain and chaplain’s assistant. As the battalion supply sergeant his hands were in everything logistics. So, he drove over to pick us up from the eastern side of Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) near Camp Liberty in a company High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) that soldiers simply call a Humvee. That way, he could personally make sure that we were picked up at the airfield and properly settled into what would be our housing for that year: a small trailer called a CHU which is simply an acronym for a Containerized Housing Unit.

The sergeant welcomed us to Baghdad and told us to wait over by the fence as he moved and parked the still-running Humvee near the gate. He assisted us by grabbing and throwing our small pile of duffel bags into the back of the vehicle. After we strapped everything down, then making sure we had all our sensitive items on our person (Weapon, gas mask and a few other small items), we got in, combat-locked our doors and drove off Baghdad International Airport. It was stifling hot inside that vehicle, and after doing the duffel bag drag, I was thoroughly soaked to my underwear. When we started down the perimeter road, kicking up all kinds of dust (which to me was the texture of talcum powder), I had to unlock and slide open the vehicle’s window. After all – we were presently travelling around the desert in a huge metal box. I was sitting in the Tactical Commander’s (TC’s) seat in the front right of the vehicle. Our supply sergeant was driving, and my assistant was in the back seat directly behind me. I unlocked and opened the window to try to just get some sort of air moving through that rolling tin can. The aircon was either broken or non-existent. We started heading down the perimeter road of the sprawling Victory Base Camp (VBC) that was attached to BIAP and drove a winding track that slowly moved us towards our headquarters at Camp Liberty. The HQ was located over on the far eastern side of VBC. It was near Sadaam Hussein’s Al Faw palace which our Forces set up their Tactical Operation’s Center (TOC) or Command Center in. Not far from where I would be living was Sadaam’s two son’s Z lake. The supply sergeant jovially gave a brief history tour of VBC as we drove over. He told me that Sadaam’s two sons had the lake dug out large enough so that their families could water ski in the desert. What got the Iraqi people mad was when it was time for the sons to fill their lake, they shut off the water to the City of Baghdad for three days.

Our headquarters as well as the TOC, I was told, was only a few more kilometers away. As a chaplain I needed to know right away where the TOC was, because I needed to be present to hear the daily BUB or Battle Update Brief, as well as track any fighting or kinetic troop activity across the battalion’s battle space. I also needed to keep abreast of the inbound status on any casualties that we may have suffered. Next to the TOC sat our Army Logistics Operation Center or ALOC, where my assistant and I would have our offices. That would be our base of operations when we were not flying or convoying around Baghdad to visit and hold religious services for our guys located at our battalion’s Combat Outposts, simply called COPs by soldiers. Our buildings were not far away from the brigade headquarters, where our brigade commander and his staff would direct the brigade’s movements in and around Baghdad, as well as throughout our AO or Area of Operations.

As the dust blew up from the front tires and in through my window, further clogging my nose, I could see for myself that we were getting close. Close, because I started to see the blurred shapes of buildings though the night haze. As the buildings became clearer and clearer under the nearby streetlights, out of nowhere blared what I could only describe as a thunderous voice from heaven. INCOMING! INCOMING! INCOMING! roared the voice. Immediately following the announcement was a loud Bump, bump, bump. They were sounds identifying that we were presently under attack and would be possibly hit with an impending strike of incoming enemy rockets. The Big Voice as it was called, was the Base Security’s way of informing everyone on our Forward Operating Base or (FOB) that we were under attack. It was alerting everyone that there was indirect fire inbound from the enemy, in the form of some type of rockets or artillery. Most likely, they were inbound rockets that were being systematically launched by the enemy and were now randomly landing with loud explosive thuds across the base. Two things immediately entered my mind when I heard the Big Voice the second time. The first was, "Wow, my first day…no, my first couple of hours in Iraq and I’m already under attack, and second, I thought to myself; Pray." I immediately prayed that my Father in Heaven would place a shield of protection over and around us wherever we were located on the FOB.

The third time that I heard the bump, bump, bump, and the Big Voice thundering INCOMING, INCOMING, INCOMING, I saw something that I will remember the rest of my life. Out of the pitch-black darkness of the night sky, a thick line of red sparks began streaming across the horizon with the exact same sound I had heard at the airport. Brrrrrt, Brrrrrt. Yet, this time it was much, much louder. I leaned forward in our vehicle and looked up at the sky. The scene above me resembled a red snake of brilliant sparks twisting and turning and flying across the night sky. As the serpentine trail of red sparks made its way across the sky, our anti-rocket fire was suddenly detonating and exploding the incoming enemy rockets. I would see a bright flash of white light as one rocket was hit, exploded in the air, and fell to the earth followed by another and then another. I could then see that our anti-artillery or anti-rocket missile defense system was off to my left, perched on the top of a little hill not far from where we were driving. I realized that was why the sound of the rounds being fired forming our defensive shield was so loud; we were now driving right next to it. Another Brrrrrt, followed closely by two sequential booms. Two more rockets got knocked down out of the sky. Then, directly in front of us some distance away, was a huge thud followed by a red fireball rising high into the air, where an enemy rocket managed to get through our shield.

We continued along the perimeter road that followed Z Lake, once again hearing the big voice roaring out Incoming, incoming, incoming, followed by the sequential and unmistakable warning sound of the bump, bump, bump. The phalanx or Counter, Rocket, Artillery and Mortar (C-RAM) system fired once again, lighting up the sky with tens of thousands of anti-missile rounds. Thousands of red tracers now screamed across the dark night sky. I told the guys, Man, O’ man, all those rounds are landing somewhere! As the C-RAM continued to push red lead towards the sky, all three of us could occasionally see a bright flash where the rounds met the incoming missiles, exploding them midair and showering the debris somewhere over Baghdad. Most enemy rockets were being knocked down before they ever entered the perimeter of our base.

Al Qaeda were firing multiple Katyusha rockets from POO sites (Points of Origin) around Baghdad. I would learn later at the next day’s BUB: the enemy had several rocket sites set up the previous night on remote timers to launch. The enemy would make two-by-four scrap wood sleds, then position these sleds in the city dumps and slightly raise the rockets vertically to land in or near VBC. Most of the crudely constructed sleds were well hidden by surrounding trash and garbage. This made it extremely difficult to find the rockets from the air with helicopters or even by allied foot patrols on the ground.

Our supply sergeant leaned back and told us, Hang on guys, just a few hundred yards more. As we turned left into the large gravel parking lot in front of the TOC, right in front of us at the eleven o’clock position exploded a Katyusha rocket. It was like something from a fourth of July explosion gone wrong - except on a much larger scale. There was a huge flash of bright light followed immediately by millions of ascending and then descending red, yellow, and orange sparks. Everything flashed a brilliant white and then slowly faded to black. After a few seconds, I could see the smoke continue to billow upwards in a small mushroom cloud, from the light of a small streetlight located at the edge of the gravel parking lot.

As shrapnel ricocheted off our vehicle, all of us in unison yelled out, Whoa and I immediately reached up to try and close the window on my side of the Humvee. My assistant yelled out, Sir, don’t get out of this vehicle! I immediately yelled back, I’m not, I’m trying to close the window so that we don’t get any shrapnel coming through the window, bouncing around in this big metal box and hurting one of us! Our driver simultaneously closed his, and as soon as those windows slammed shut, off to the left side of the vehicle exploded two more Katyusha rockets with deafening blasts. The enemy was walking rounds in and Boom!, then a second or two delay, and a little further away another "boom, then a second or two delay, a little further away and boom again. These were not hitting the ground out in the center of the gravel lot like the last one. Instead, they were exploding into the CHUs that were surrounding our TOC. There was no less of an explosion near the CHUs, but they sounded somewhat muffled. I yelled out, Guys, those are hitting in our buildings!" Even though the places we lived on base were simple aluminum boxes resembling small ten foot by ten-foot trailers, each one was protected by an eight- to ten-foot-high wall of sandbags surrounding it. Those sandbags were stacked about three-quarters of the way all the way around the walls of our CHUs and to be struck by an incoming rocket, it would have to go right through the overhead ceiling.

We parked in front of our HQ and sat in the vehicle, waiting for the all clear announcement. After a few more minutes we heard the all clear come over the PA. We immediately left our vehicle with our gear still in the back of the Humvee and ran to the surrounding buildings to see if anyone was wounded or hurt. As we ran around the large concrete T-wall barrier that was protecting our headquarters building, my heart sank. One of the Katyushas had gone through a roof, killing a Specialist from a National Guard Unit in Wisconsin. Several of the soldiers from his unit were already trying to provide some sort of first aid while simultaneously trying to get ahold of some medics. Everyone present was trained and certified in Combat Lifesaver Skills Training, but I knew we were too late. The soldier’s chest had been laid open and he was gone.

I distinctly remember that during those few moments of time, both in and out of the vehicle, my army training just instinctively kicked in. Yet, the simultaneous mixture of fear, bravery, adrenaline, and sadness at the horrific loss made me, even just for a moment, feel that I was extremely vulnerable in this place. Here it was, my first day in Iraq, and during my first few hours in country I had already witnessed the horrific effects of war. After praying over the fallen soldier, we left the wreckage, the unit and now the medics, and reported to the TOC just a short walk away. We checked in for accountability purposes and got our CHU assignments from the company first sergeant. This time around, Top was on his fourth deployment to Iraq and after all that had just happened that night, he was standing there with a cup of coffee in his hand. The next day, I learned from the SITREP (Situation Report) that had been sent up through the channels to HQ that indeed, one soldier had lost his life, another was severely wounded with lacerations from shrapnel to his left side, and yet another young man was going to lose a foot from the previous evening’s attack.

So, there you have it; that was my first day in Iraq. I saw and experienced war firsthand, and it changed me. What I had personally experienced on that single day prepared and hardened me for the rest of my year-long deployment. Yet, it also, and at the time unknowingly, prepped me for the things I would see and experience on subsequent deployments. Like the one I would experience just two short years later in Afghanistan.

PART ONE

PREPARING FOR WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

1

FROM FORT LEWIS TO FORT CARSON, AND THE 704TH BSB

But forget all that—

it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.

For I am about to do something new.

See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?

I will make a pathway through the wilderness.

I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.²

Fourth Stryker Brigade flew back to the States in late August 2010, and after months of reintegration, I had finally received orders for my next duty assignment to Fort Carson, Colorado. Home of the Fourth Infantry Division! The army has learned through its extended years of conflict in both Iraq and Afghanistan that its families go through huge amounts of reintegration stress. Because soldiers returning home from war experience so many difficulties reacclimating to American life, the army usually leaves the unit chaplain (who deployed with the unit) on station for an additional three to six months before transferring to a new assignment. This gives both soldiers and their family members that safe, one hundred percent confidential, trusting, pastoral counselor to guide and walk with them through the readjustment to family life. Leaving the chaplain in place for that extra amount of time also allows our single soldiers the opportunity to meet with the chaplain whom many had built a friendship with downrange. This helps them in readjusting to American life as well. For all of us, remarkably simple things like driving along the road are quite different after a deployment. Soldiers find themselves unconsciously surveying overpasses with a wary eye. They notice their wife in the passenger seat shaking their head because the soldier is continually glancing at garbage on the side of the highway. These events can cause real stress and a period of unpredictable adjustment on the return home. The continued presence of the unit chaplain can bring about a calming and reassuring effect on a unit and its morale. Chaplains are there