Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
11:05 | Robert Rose was excited. It was his last mission in the field before he went to a larger base to prepare a transition book for the next unit. The civil affairs outfit was assessing Afghan schools and, although he was usually on the vehicle's gun, he went inside to do the assessment. Suddenly, there was machine gun fire outside and he could hardly believe what he found out there. (Caution: strong language.)
Keywords : Robert Rose civil affairs Afghanistan Michael Trost Afghan tourniquet radio Albanian wounded adrenaline
Military service was the family business. Robert Rose followed his father's lead and enlisted in the Army reserves after three years of college. He wasn't a great soldier during his initial training but his sergeant in advanced training sent him to someone who could be a great mentor for him.
Due to his peculiar enlistment contract, Robert Rose didn't have to go to Afghanistan, but when his Reserve unit deployed, he felt he had to go. It was a civil affairs unit and, once he was there, the missions were varied and, inevitably, involved something that he had to study to understand, like prison assessments.
It was a great deployment with the exception of that one fateful day. Robert Rose elected to continue in the Army and make a career out of it. And the day that changed lives made for a bond among the men of that unit that still lasts.
The men of the 489th Civil affairs Battalion were having a good deployment in Afghanistan despite mistrust of their Afghan allies and intermittent funding for their projects. That all changed one day when they took an official from USAID with them to assess local schools. Out of nowhere, machine gun fire erupted and a scramble for life began. Michael Trost, Robert Rose and Colin Walsh combine to tell the story of this surprise attack. (Caution: strong language.)
