Remote Outpost: Fighting with the US Army in Afghanistan

By Travis Harman

The true story of a father and son who enlist in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard after the horrors of 9/11 shake the nation.

Travis Harman, a young skater punk from the small farming town of Hughesville, PA has never had a close relationship with his father, Dean, but after 9/11 shakes the nation, Travis and Dean enlist in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard together. Shortly after joining, Travis begins to have second thoughts and devises a plan to leave the Army. Once back in Hughesville, he realizes the only way he’ll ever gain his father’s acceptance is to enlist, and so he reverses course and joins again. This time, now fully committed, Travis endures rigorous basic and advanced training at Fort Benning and Fort Gordon, Georgia. Just as advanced training ends, Dean helps Travis get work at Fort Indiantown Gap supporting the training of troops preparing to deploy. As Travis prepares to head back to Hughesville, Dean calls informing him that father and son will be deploying to Afghanistan together.

Travis and Dean deploy to Afghanistan in December of 2008, heading to Fort Bragg, North Carolina first. After three months of train up, Travis is sent to a remote outpost in the northeast part of the country, while his father has a cushy desk job at Bagram Airfield. Travis is pulled into often horrific realities of modern war as he experiences intense combat all while yearning for his father’s acceptance. Travis goes back to Bagram and sees his father in transit to Qatar where he will be going on pass for some much-needed rest and relaxation. The tales of Travis’ bravery under fire reach his father before Travis arrives, and when he greets his father once again, Travis starts to feel accepted by his father, a feeling he has chased since boyhood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Jun 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9781036103262

Travis Harman

Travis Harman was born and raised in central Pennsylvania. Travis spent 13 years in the United States Army with a tour in Afghanistan in 2008. He was medically retired from the military in 2018 when he decided to begin his writing career and formal education at Southern New Hampshire University where he obtained his Associate of Arts in Liberal Arts. Currently he is enrolled at Wilkes University for his Master of Arts. Travis’s poem, “The Path”, can be read in Veterans Voices Magazine. He has also won The Antonym Magazines November 2021 creative nonfiction contest and is published there for his short story, “Green Handed”. Travis placed third in the Tiger’s Heart Player’s Theatre, 10-minute play contest with his play, “Heroin Daze.” He is also published by Line of Advance Literary Review for his story, “MEDEVAC, which was also a finalist for the Annie Dillard nonfiction award. When Travis isn’t busy writing he enjoys playing guitar and spending time with his family.

Book preview

Chapter 1

No Shortage of War

The battalion surgeon popped the lower half of my jaw back into place as I sat on the makeshift exam table which was a black mesh Army stretcher on two sawhorses. He took a step back, looked at me curiously and watched in awe as my jaw literally dropped. A stream of blood trickled down my face from the corner of my mouth and on to my tan shirt.

‘Yeah, I’d say that’s broke. We gotta get him out of here ASAP. Call the MEDEVAC,’ he ordered.

I was given a shot of morphine and waited in the primitive aid station built from HESCO barriers, sandbags, and plywood. It was one of the safest places on our tiny built on the side of a mountain at the top of the Alishang Valley in north-eastern Afghanistan. It housed forty of us in total. Twenty from our infantry platoon, known as Joker Platoon, and twenty Afghan National Army soldiers.

My brothers started to filter through as my closest comrade Specialist Fern went to pack bag for my travels.

‘I guess this is it, man. See ya when we get back.’

It was late August of 2008, and the rest of my platoon wouldn’t be returning until November. Fern handed me my assault pack and I began to riffle through it.

‘Hey man. Where’s my iPod? I wanna hear some music,’ I said.

A warm fuzzy feeling had overtaken me, and I began to float away from the seriousness of the situation and into a comfortably numb world. After fumbling through my bag, I found my iPod in the outside pocket. I put a headphone in my left ear, hit play and began to sing my heart out as if I were at a bar belting out drunken karaoke.

‘Lucyyy in the skyyyy with diiiamonds.’

‘Be quiet! Your jaw is broken!’

The surgeon was not pleased with my performance. I felt no pain when I was hit, and now that the morphine was coursing through my veins, I felt nothing at all. To shut me up he began to wrap my head with a green and white Army bandage like a Revolutionary War soldier. I was getting my ticket home from Afghanistan, but at the price of my jaw being split in two. As he finished, I could hear a Blackhawk helicopter chopping through the air, zipping its way up the valley to pick me up over the sweet sound of The Beatles.

WHOP! WHOP! WHOP!

It landed on our helicopter pad that was only big enough to hold one chopper, dusting everything out with the dirt it kicked up as it made its descent. My brothers in arms walked me to the helicopter arm-in-arm and loaded me onto my chariot. I looked on as if it were the last time I might see them. I wanted to stay with my platoon but knew I couldn’t heal properly in this rugged desert mountain environment that we called home. I had lived on Combat Outpost Najil, also known as Punisher Base, for around six months and thought for sure that I would take my last breath there.

I boarded the Blackhawk, took my seat near the left door behind the pilot and began to strap in so I would not fall out on our swift ride through the towering mountains. I looked down to my feet and saw an Afghan National Army soldier in a body bag that was zipped up to his chin, only enough to let his head poke out. He had gauze over each eye, and blood on what I could see of his scruffy tan face. The flight medic checked his pulse, looked at me and shook his head.

The helicopter took off, showering everything with dust as we became airborne. I sat there, stoned out of my mind, watching out of the open door as the mountains littered with primitive villages and lush green fields in the valley passed before me. I saw the flight medic check the soldier’s pulse once more. He looked to the crew chief on board and shook his head, signaling that this man was still with us. It was as if they were waiting for him to die, just waiting to zip the bag the rest of the way up.

In a stoned gaze I looked down at him and my mind wandered. Who was he, and why was he being treated without dignity? He was an Afghan soldier fighting for his country’s freedom from the radical clutch of the Taliban. What if it were me in that bag instead? How did this all start and how did it get to this point? My mind began to drift back-to when this all began …

* * *

School had started in mid-August, and less than a month later would be picture day. The excitement overtook me as I put on my brand- new outfit. This had been my very first pair of matching clothes. A grey skateboard tee-shirt that said ‘Independent’, with matching black pants, and a pair of skate shoes that were beat up just a touch from the grip tape on my skateboard. I couldn’t get out the door fast enough to have my photo taken. It was a nice ten-minute walk from my house to the high school, and for the first five minutes I was alone and felt as though I was taking everything in for the first time in my thirteen years. The baby-blue sky was cloudless, and the sunshine gleamed off the dewy grass. I was falling in love with September. On the way I stopped at my best friend Kyle’s house to see if he would be joining me in school. He was notorious for non-attendance, but on this day I was graced with his presence.

‘That’s what you’re wearing to picture day?’ I asked.

‘It’s just a picture.’

Just a picture?

Regardless of Kyle’s negativity, I was still overflowing with excitement. We finished the last five minutes of the walk sharing a cigarette and talking about where we were going to skate after school.

‘Dude, we better hurry. We gotta be there for 8.05,’ I said.

‘Whatever, no rush.’

I left Kyle at the entrance to the school as I darted through the halls filled with tomorrow’s leaders, blue-collar workers and criminals, to find my homeroom. With only a minute to spare, the bell rang. We would listen to morning announcements and then the National Anthem would play, followed by us reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Just gotta get through math and then it’s picture time instead of English class!

With every passing minute I could feel my heart racing, faster and faster.

These next ten minutes are gonna drag.

The bell rang, and we were all released into the hallway. Something was wrong, though. Young teens walked through the halls whispering to one another.

What the fuck is going on?

I arrived at English class, only for our teacher, Mrs. Beck, to hurry us into our seats.

‘There’s been an accident in New York. A plane flew into the Twin Towers,’ she said.

We gasped, and the class began to quietly panic. The television was immediately turned on to try and calm the chaos. At this point we believed that it was just an accident, albeit a horrific one. We watched in horror as a second plane hit the South Tower at 9.03 a.m.

Immediately we realized this was no accident, but an attack on our nation. Classes ceased for the remainder of the day, and many students went home early. Kyle and I took this opportunity to leave and make our way home to the rest of our skater gang on South Fourth Street in Hughesville, but not before I got my picture taken. When we left, the sky had turned to a haze with the smoke drifting in from New York. My beautiful day had turned grey.

‘Do you think we’ll go to war?’ I asked.

‘Probably,’ Kyle said.

‘I’ll sign up to go. Hopefully it’s still going on when I’m old enough to join,’ I said.

My father had enlisted in the Marines during the 1980s and spent time in South America doing drug raids. Later, in the early 90s, when I was three, he enlisted in the Army National Guard to be closer to home. I would wake up early, around 4.00 a.m. and watch the news with him on our couch before he left to go to training for the weekend. This scene of my father in his uniform leaving in the wee hours of the morning with a duffel bag slung over his back is one of my first memories. I have always felt a sense of duty from a very young age. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up my simple reply was always the same: ‘A soldier’. I would play Army on our farm with my cousin Luke and younger brother Tyler. Pretending to be soldiers in a foreign land, fighting back the Viet Cong. Memorial Day and Veterans Day became my favorite holidays. I was proud that my mother’s father had served in World War II with valor. Being a soldier was my purpose in life.

When Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) launched in October of 2001, my father once more decided to join up and did so in September of 2004. I would be seventeen in a month, and it seemed my wish would be coming true, as there war. OEF was in its third year, but the focus now was on Iraq after the invasion in March of 2003. Right after his he called and tried to convince me to follow in his footsteps.

‘It’s only one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Mom said I should stay around here for a year and then decide.’

‘Don’t listen to yer mother,’ he said, like always.

My father and mother had decided to part ways after my father had been caught cheating with another woman. One night around Thanksgiving his girlfriend called the house crying, begging for my father, saying that she needed him desperately. My mother and father did their best to hide the pain he was causing, but nonetheless it affected my little brother Tyler and myself.

We wouldn’t see my father for almost two years after the divorce because his priorities were partying and getting laid, instead of his own children. On one occasion my mother became so frustrated with me because I gave her shit for rearranging the house. I threw a tantrum like a toddler. Overwhelmed and at her limits, she instructed me to pack a bag and told me that I would be living with my father from now on. I duly packed, and she drove me to his house. We interrupted a party that he was hosting, and I could see through the bay window of our old family home to a house full of people with their children, some of whom I attended school with. My father answered the door, towering over me.

‘Mom said I have to live with you.’

‘Yer not livin’ with me. Go get in the car and tell yer mother to come here.’

I sat in the car in silence with Tyler, who was sitting in the front seat. I felt homeless and as if no one wanted me. I watched as my mother talked to my father for what was only a moment but felt like hours. She came back to the car, and no one spoke a word during the short ride home. When we arrived, I went straight to my room and went to sleep, having concluded that I had become disposable and could now only depend on myself.

My father enlisted on the first of the month, and Labor Day was that upcoming weekend. I decided to take what he had told me about the National Guard and consider it as a possibility. I did not have a solid plan for life after high school and would always joke about my options with my mother.

‘I’m either gonna join the Army, become a rock star or go to school for photography.’

Being a rock star was not in the realm of possibilities, unless I planned on living in her basement and inevitably working at the factory building homes for the rest of my life. I did, however, apply to an art school located in Germantown, Pennsylvania for photography and was accepted. I loved the arts as a teenager. Pictures, music, drawing, painting, writing. I imagined myself graduating from college, the first one in my family to do so. I would get a job as a photographer with National Geographic and travel the world, all the while doing what I loved. Through one lens or another, I was going to see the world.

Kyle and I traveled with his mother to her boyfriend’s Labor Day weekend, about an hour north of us. The ride was filled with beauty. A sky that looked like an ocean, and the greens beginning to fade to orange and yellow. There was a small creek running parallel to the road we were on, trickling through the countryside. I was still in love with September but was hesitant to fully enjoy her bounty. Three years had passed since that fateful day of 9/11, and the once overwhelming patriotic feeling was fading fast, much like the trees before me. My patriotism was beginning to grow, though, unlike the feeling of my fellow citizens who were torn on if we should be at war or not. When we arrived at our destination we were greeted with pipes, bongs and joints by his mother’s boyfriend. We spent the weekend getting stoned and lying around. By the time Sunday came, I finally got off the couch and out of my haze. Realizing that I did not want to live this way, I was leaning towards enlisting, but was not completely sold on it yet.

That Sunday night, I crawled into bed at my mother’s house. I turned on the television I had purchased with money from the small paycheck that I earned at the local McDonald’s. I had recently started watching HBO’s Band of Brothers. Military history had always been a fascination of mine, and I would get lost in books on battles in faraway lands. This series brought Stephen E. Ambrose’s book to the spotlight and glorified the foot soldier of World War II, especially those of the 101st Airborne Division. The story of the men of Easy Company and their bond forged in blood moved me no end. This was the final nail in the coffin for me to make my choice. I wanted to go to war and form my own band of brothers. As soon as I turned seventeen I called the National Guard recruiter whose number my father had given me after our conversation on joining.

‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘Turned seventeen of October.’

‘You’ll need your parents’ signatures to join. I know your dad will sign, what about your mom?’

‘You’d better come talk to her,’ I said.

I swear he was at the house before I could hang up the phone. We greeted him at the door, a stout sergeant who had no overseas experience. His belly looked out of place in his Army uniform, and it was obvious that he spent his time behind a desk. In his eyes I was easy money and a number to meet his monthly quota, and all that was stopping him was my mother’s signature.

‘Look, he’ll get training that he can use after the Army and money for college. Hell, we pay for any state school tuition free.’

I didn’t even care about the college money. College? I was going to fight, no need for that.

‘What if he gets deployed? I’m worried he might …’, said my mother.

‘Ma’am, statistically speaking he has a greater chance of dying here in a car crash.’

She believed him, and with the stroke of a pen from my mother I was allowed to join the United States Army National Guard.

18 October is a day that marks many events for my family. It is my stepfather’s birthday, the day my maternal grandfather died, and my date into the Pennsylvania Army National Guard at the Harrisburg MEPS (military entry processing station). What they don’t tell you is that joining the military is a long process and of the notorious ‘ ‘. I usually did not get up before seven, so getting up at four in the morning was a shock.

Better get used to this, I guess.

The day consisted of standing in line at various stations for physical exams, and then it was time to do the paperwork. A urine sample, HIV test, a doctor visit, and standing in your underwear with other men while doing a duck walk were all on the list for the day. We were handed a meal ready to eat (MRE) for lunch and ate when we had time. When all the physical and medical stuff was done, it was on to the administrative side.

‘So, young man, what do you want to do?’ The admin sergeant asked.

‘I wanna be a scout or infantry!’

I could barely contain myself. I desperately wanted a job that would put me on the front line right in the middle of all the action.

‘The problem with that is you’re red/green color blind.’

‘OK, so what does that mean?’

‘You can only do one of these jobs.’

The sergeant slid me a piece of paper with a list of what looked like ten jobs to choose from. They were administrative or logistical, mostly non-combat positions.

‘What about a combat medic?’ I asked.

‘Your ASVAB score is a point low for that job. Why don’t you take a minute to think about it.’

I sat out in the waiting area until my recruiter showed up. Did I even want to still do this since I couldn’t be a scout or infantry? I knew that I could request a job change once I was in, but why spend all that wasted time training on something I didn’t want to be. I sat by myself as the recruiter continued to try and convince me to just pick a job. It wasn’t his life, though, and he had different goals in mind than I did. I was going to make it to the front line one way or another.

‘What about a radio operator?’ I asked.

All the Vietnam War movies I had watched as a kid were running through my mind. The radio operator was always in the middle of the action, taking more fire than the others, it seemed. Perhaps because he was a walking target, with that large antenna sticking out of his backpack radio. The thought began to overtake me, and the hair on my arms stood up as I sank deeper into this fantasy of combat.

‘You’re usually put with the infantry guys as a radio operator,’ the recruiter said.

That was all I needed to hear to continue my journey of joining the military. I went back into the admin sergeant’s office and told him the job I