Embedding with a unit is not unlike looking at a tapestry. At first, the patterns of the weave are viewed from afar. It is not until you begin to study the design up close that the complexity of the entire piece begins to be revealed. With each day I am brought closer to the individual stories that make-up the picture of this deployment. Stories of soldiers, their lives, their choices. Each person represents another narrative to explore; and each of these narratives is snapshot, not just of the soldiers, but of the type of people that we are.

Sergeant Burgess is from St. Helens, Oregon. He is twenty-five years old, and has been in the National Guard for a little over six years. This is his second deployment; he was previously deployed to Kuwait between 2003 and 2004. Like so many of the members of Task Force Phoenix V, Sergeant Burgess is committed to his job. His story moved me.

"My brother is a Specialist. He's been in the National Guard for about two years. He was going to be deploying to Afghanistan on this mission... I kind of got him involved in the Guard, so I decided to be the big brother and go with him... He's twenty-three. We were going to go together."

Sergeant Burgess continued,"We found out a couple of weeks into getting ready for this deployment that our father was terminally ill with cancer of the kidney. It was then that we decided that one of us shouldn't go."

"Our father served before us; he retired with twenty-five years in service as a Major. [He] started out Army as an Engineer; he finished in the National Guard. He did all kinds of crazy stuff... Korea, Vietnam, he was also in Germany."

"My brother and his wife just had a child. I told him he should stay, that I would go. He's never deployed. Me and my brother are the last two to pass on our family name."

"I've deployed; I knew some of the guys going and I have a decent idea of what I'm going to be doing. I don't want my little brother to go somewhere and not come back; he's got family to take care of and I feel that's a bit bigger than what I've got right now."

When asked what his greatest hopes for this mission are, Sergeant Burgess replied, "I'm not asking for trigger time though I'm ready for it. I hope most of all that we become cohesive together and do the best we can, do our mission successfully and all come back alive."

As I was preparing to leave, Sergeant Burgess mentioned his fiance'... "We have the ring. I just want to say "Hi" to her. Elisa Walling, I love you and I can't wait to come home and marry you and spend the rest of my life with you."

He shook my hand, and thanked me for listening. One older brother to another, we bid each other "Good-night."

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Copyright, Scott Kesterson- 2006

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