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In Memory of Bernard Corpuz: Born 1977 - KIA June 11th, 2006
In loving memory of SPC Bernard Corpuz – Born 1977, KIA June 11th, 2006.
June 11th was most certainly the worst day in my life, without any stretch of exaggeration.
Relatively early on June 11th I got a call that my soldier, Bernard, had been WIA from an IED in the vicinity of Yaqub village, Ghazni province, Afghanistan (see link to news story below).
Since I had not heard from Bernard - which was unusual considering I am responsible for all of the regional detention sites in eastern Afghanistan - I ran to the TOC (tactical operations center) to verify he was indeed inbound on an MEDEVAC Blackhawk, and there wasn’t a miscommunication.
He arrived approximately five minutes later. I helped get him off of the helicopter, and stayed right beside him until the end in the operating room. He never regained consciousness. I will spare all of the personal details, as that is between me, him, the medical staff, and his mother (if she wishes to know).
That evening we loaded him onto a Blackhawk to be transported back to Bagram, where he was further transported back to the States via military aircraft the next day. Over 250 soldiers showed up on their own accord and stood in formation to honor him as he was loaded onto the aircraft. I was the senior ranking pallbearer for his small ceremony here at this little firebase, and his friend J.C. was also a pallbearer. The flag on base was flown and half-mast all day on the 11th, and I took the flag down on the 12th and folded it to send to his mother with my letter.
More importantly, I wanted to talk about what a great soldier and person he was. Left by himself at the Ghazni regional detention site, he easily ran operations there with almost no help from me at all. When I assigned tasks to the interrogators in eastern Afghanistan, he was always the first to have the tasks completed, and always to perfection. He was the utmost professional – while everyone else calls me Matt or Matthew because we are in civilian clothes out here, he was too embarrassed to allow his professionalism to slip and as such always addressed me on the phone as “Sergeant”, or in email correspondence – “Staff Sergeant.” He was killed in action because he volunteered to help assist some of his fellow soldiers from the unit he was supporting who were engaged elsewhere with the enemy. Bernard was an only child from California, and the center of his mother’s life. He was unmarried, but leaves a girlfriend who is currently deployed to Iraq. Bernard had a master’s degree, and yet still chose to join the military to help his fellow soldiers and country in their time of need – after September 11th, when he knew he would be deployed.
When you are a friend with another soldier and they are KIA that is terrible enough. But when you are a soldier’s non-commissioned officer and he is killed – it is another thing entirely. I have not slept, wondering if I could have told him something that would have saved his life, or if I had spoken with him in the morning and told him he was not allowed to leave his base - would he still be alive? I have lied awake in bed wondering what everyone would say if that was me, and wondering what to write in the letter to his mother, which I have re-written about seven times so far. When I do sleep, I see him being worked on in the operating room, and I see the looks on the doctor’s faces when they realized he was not going to make it. I see the chaplain issuing the last rites, and I see myself loading him onto that helicopter, and then it flying away – knowing I will never see this great person, this great soldier - ever again.
Your perspective on life really changes when you see one of your soldiers die. In the morning you are complaining because there is no butter in the chow hall, you haven’t gotten that Playstation 2 game you ordered from Amazon.com yet, or the cheap Army toilet paper is tad rough on your backside, and then the next thing you know, you are crying outside of a field hospital because your soldier died and you are wondering if there was anything you could have said or done to re-write history. Suddenly your food has no taste, you have no appetite anyway, and you dread going to sleep. You wonder if there is anything you missed telling him that could have saved his life, that you need to tell your other soldiers so they don’t die also.
You start thinking about random things, like what is the mother going to say when she realizes she is entitled to $400,000 from the Army for his life insurance? As if any amount of money could bring back the most important thing in her life. I can’t even bring myself to watch a funny movie, play a video game, or even eat that much – how does one get to the point where they feel that they can spend nearly half a million dollars of insurance money?
If there is a heaven, was he looking down at me in the field hospital, glad that someone he knew and trusted was there with him? Will his mother hate me when she gets my letter, resenting the fact that I let her son go on a mission that eventually led to his death? Does his mother blame herself, as I blame myself, because she did not convince him to stay away from the military? Are my other soldiers worried I will send them on a mission that will them killed also?
It’s no wonder that veterans of worse wars have had emotional scars. I will never forget this soldier for the rest of my life – not his name, what he looked like, or anything I know about him. I certainly will never forget how he looked in the field hospital. How could WWI or WWII vets begin, as NCOs, to cope with losing 10 soldiers? 20?
You can sign the guestbook here:
http://www.legacy.com/mercurynews/G...rsonID=18113855
And read the best article here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/14816708.htm
See his "hero page" here:
http://www.militarycity.com/valor/1871669.html
Some more news stories:
http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=19602
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun...60611_5384.html
I'm sorry this is in the political forum, but really couldn't think of another place for it. This definately isn't a "fun" story.
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Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation Enduring Freedom
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