THE Fighting Illini

By Army Lt. Matt Spartz

Editor’s note: Army Lt. Matt Spartz, a lifelong Lombard resident, was deployed to Afghanistan in May with the 101st Airborne Division. A 2008 journalism graduate of University of Illinois, he is submitting occasional reports for the Daily Herald.

Walking out the gate of an outpost for the first time is what I imagine an inmate feels like during his first steps outside of prison; a more literal translation may paint the American outpost more like freedom and the war zone I walked into as more like the prison. But my first time stepping “outside the wire was like waking up to the sunny dawn after a rainstorm.

Finally I was leaving the shadow of dirt-filled, wire Hesco barriers that surround and protect combat outposts. Although I’ve been in Afghanistan for five months, it felt like this was my first day actually in the country. I found myself walking down a regular street next to a field being harvested in the distance. Kids were playing on a blue and white-striped swing set hidden beneath a shady grove. Without the M4 rifle in my hands and the body armor soaking up the warm autumn, I could have been strolling through the Illinois countryside.

I’ve gone from being an artillery platoon leader to being the fire support officer for an infantry company. Instead of overseeing my platoon firing howitzer cannons to support the infantry, I’m now the infantry commander’s expert on planning artillery and air assets for his missions. The lieutenant I’m shadowing who will go on to lead the beloved platoon I trained and fought with for 18 months.

While I shadow his job, our first big task is to meet with the local Afghan official who runs the civil projects I’ll soon be managing.

This official’s reputation is for being one of the few honest Afghans who can set deadlines, stay on budget and keep people accountable. He served us Mountain Dew – his favorite drink – and packaged banana cakes. As the midmorning meeting went on we were brought the usual fare: dishes of chickpeas, raisins (stems included), a portion of an unknown, aquamarine seed with a flowery taste and a spicy mix of crunchy chips. The chai tea was the same tint as Mountain Dew, with heaping spoons of large-grain sugar.

Unlike the reputation of the usual Middle Eastern business meeting, ours consisted of nearly all business talk with what seemed like tangible results. We followed up on the election of the local development shura, and laid out plans for multiple projects. Our interpreter is so fluent in American slang he regularly drops the “F-bomb in perfect context when referring to the Taliban, and can convey our jokes in Pashto to get the entire group laughing.

This meeting will take place weekly in my new job and probably will seem very trivial to some. But that day I left the typical American comfort zone. I connected with regular Afghans working to better their homeland, putting into place the actionable arm of American diplomacy. Here, hope exists to make an impact on the lives of real, poor and war-torn people. Here, and in thousands of these shuras across Afghanistan, over sugary chai with handwritten contracts stamped with purple finger prints, is where the war against extremism will be won.

Times like these makes me feel bad about any time thinking down on this country and these people. If one official like this exists, there must be thousands more. If one exists, there’s a chance this mission will succeed.

Copyright © 2010 Paddock Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strength. When you go through hardship and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

Editor’s Note: Army Lt. Matt Spartz, a lifelong Lombard resident, was deployed to Afghanistan in May with the 101st Airborne Division. A 2008 journalism graduate of University of Illinois, he is submitting occasional reports for the Daily Herald.

Life on a combat outpost is a modern day Sparta. Far from the “flagpole,” or larger bases with high ranking officers, daily life revolves around one maxim – training for battle.

Without delving too deep into the existential, the similarities are pointed out by nearly every soldier who has experienced this warrior’s haven.

A common misconception about the legendary “300″ at Thermopylae is just that, that there were only 300 warriors. But each warrior had at least three supporters or future warriors with him to carry and service his gear, his food and his medical supplies. One of the books on our brigade’s predeployment reading list was Steven Pressfield’s “Gates of Fire,” which beautifully illustrates the warrior culture of the Spartans and their stand at the Hot Gates. But I never expected the comparisons to our modern battlefield to run so true.

Despite the relatively small size of many outposts, the population is distinctly separated into warriors and their supporters. Like the Spartans, the warriors serve one purpose – to fight their fight. Whether that be standing watch in a guard tower, patrolling the long-forgotten mountain villages, or firing a howitzer cannon, every day’s purpose is to increase the warrior’s proficiency in his fighting tasks.

The supporters may be other soldiers, but they are mainly civilian contractors or local workers hired from nearby villages. There are Russian contractors who keep the water pumps and generators working, Indian contractors who clean the chow hall and bathrooms, and local Afghans who transport trash, build new buildings and help cook the food.

Like the Spartans, the warriors eat, sleep and train together. They wake up early and conduct missions in the dead of night. Their refrigerators are stocked with scientifically formulated Gatorade and protein shakes; their gear is made from sweat-wicking, flame-retardant material; their weapons allow them to see at night.

To local, rail-thin Afghans, we must seem like prototypical Spartans on steroids. We may complain that our Army rations compare to American prison food. But as a chaplain told me after traveling to many outposts in Afghanistan, “There are no small soldiers.” The local workers’ eyes grow wide with wonder when they enter our sacred temples filled with dumbbells and barbells. Their faces are filled with suspicion as to how pieces of forged iron could grow necks and arms so thick, while these warriors still climb their mountains so vigorously.

Every day the warrior stretches his legs to the rosy-fingered dawn; his food is hot, his laundry is ready to be picked up, and fresh ammunition is descending from heaven on fat, white helicopters. All of the supporters exist to ensure that when the enemy knocks at his door, the warrior’s legs are strong, his fingers are as quick as his wits, and the lead is readily available.

There are parts of Afghanistan that I’m sure can be compared to the fight at Thermopylae (holding off insurgents before the evacuation and closing of the remote Combat Outpost Keating, for example). I’m sure more philosophical points can be made comparing the debate over the 2011 proposed draw down to the decision whether to fight the invading Persians (didn’t they visit Afghanistan?).

But the daily, sweaty, dusty life of a Spartan existence at a combat outpost is fairly black and white: Come back with your shield, or on it.

Just in case you all didn’t see it, I am doing a guest column for the Chicago Daily Herald. Here is my second column:

Lombard soldier’s intro to war: 10% violence, 90% excruciating boredom

Editor’s Note: Army Lt. Matt Spartz, a lifelong Lombard resident, is a 2008 journalism graduate at University of Illinois. He recently was deployed to Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne Division. From there, he will be submitting occasional reports for the Daily Herald.

When the suicide bomber and squad of reported Taliban dressed in U.S. Army uniforms used grenades to breach the gate at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, the morning of May 19, my eyes shot open. I pulled one ear out behind my Bose headphones and listened intently, as if my hearing could zoom in like a sniper scope through the thick silence and pick out the specific noise.

After a year of firing more than 2,000 artillery rounds as a fire direction officer at Ft. Campbell, Ky, and multiple combined live fire exercises with our infantry units, I was used to the low thud of indirect fire. But now that I was in Afghanistan, something didn’t feel right about the crunching bass booming so close.

I put the headphones back on and closed my eyes. There was another thud. Then some indistinguishable noise. I slowly opened my eyes this time and looked around the half football field-sized tent with aluminum-framed bunk beds stacked 28 deep, seven wide, with barely 18 inches in between. The sun had yet to crest the jagged mountain peaks that surround the base like a bowl. No one stirred.

At this point I figured some shipping containers were being moved across the base, or someone was getting in some early morning training. Only later would I learn that a group of Taliban on a suicide mission would almost get passed U.S.-trained snipers, wounding nine Americans in the process.

Once the official reports got to the tent where more than 300 other soldiers and I were staying, the collective blood pressure rose. Laptops closed, boots were tied, and magazines of ammunition were passed out.

The only problem was the 68 soldiers in my unit had a collective 12 rounds. The other units weren’t much better off.

A few captains in the tent came up with a hasty plan to pull security around our tent with the combined firepower we had until more information came our way. A group of soldiers were given three rounds a piece and sent to the corners of the concrete slab of our domed tent.

We hurried to our positions, and then we waited. And waited.

A few privates carved tic-tac-toe in the dirt. Others sat at a picnic table in their T-shirts and smoked nonchalantly. The sun was hot and a quick wind blew wispy dark clouds from the north over the snow-capped ridgeline.

Soldiers joked about having to stand guard in buddy teams in order to have enough fire power to take out the enemy.

The next tent over was the local national living quarters, which was a diverse as any Chicago neighborhood. But now anyone not in uniform looked suspicious. Their darting looks and the way they walked around any group of soldiers gave away their new uneasiness with our heightened status.

An hour or so passed by. My stomach growled at the noon sun boasting above. I dreaded the thought of the dining facility staying closed more than the actual threat of a suicide bomber sprinting across the street in front of me, past the 12-foot concrete blast barriers, and taking me with him to meet Allah.

Slowly, more buses appeared on the road; the Kiowa and Apache helicopters were no longer buzzing in circles, and we got the word that we were “all clear.”

Luckily, I thought, it was the middle of the night in the states and no one knows that I’m in the middle of CNN’s breaking news. Then I realized that this was my initiation with the real war, and that it fulfilled the stereotype many people experience — war is 10 percent horrible, frightening violence and 90 percent horrible, excruciating boredom.

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strength. When you go through hardship and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger