News Article
By: BILL JONES/Staff Writer Source: The Greeneville Sun 05-21-2005
Larry Henderson, the oldest soldier serving in Iraq with the Second Squadron of the Army National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team (2/278th), has been released from duty there due to a family emergency and has returned home.
During an interview this week, Henderson, a 59-year-old Greeneville resident, who also is a veteran of the Vietnam War, recalled the events that have taken place since Greeneville-based Troop G and the rest of the 2/278th Regimental Combat Team left for active duty on Father’s Day 2004.
Henderson returned in early May. In civilian life, Henderson is Program Director of the Foster Grandparents Program of East Tennessee.
In addition to being called to active military duty and being sent to Iraq, Henderson also got married last September to a member then of the Mississippi Army National Guard who was helping process Tennessee National Guardsmen at Camp Shelby, Miss.
The future Mrs. Henderson, he said, was helping Tennessee National Guardsmen complete their wills when he and she met last June 23.
"She was helping me with my will and noticed that I had left everything to my cat, Murphy," Henderson said. "She was a cat-lover, too, and showed me a photo of her cat."
After their initial meeting, Henderson said, he asked Barbara Anne to dinner. Shortly thereafter, he said, the two began dating.
By September 2004, Henderson noted, they decided to get married and set a mid-September wedding date. They actually had two wedding ceremonies.
The first ceremony, he said, took place last Sept. 15 as a hurricane bore down on Camp Shelby.
The couple’s wedding had been set for Sept. 18, but with the hurricane projected to strike the base, he and Barbara Anne decided to get married three days early as a hedge against the storm. The base chaplain performed the impromptu ceremony in front of hurried gathering of fellow soldiers, Henderson said.
"As luck would have it, the storm missed us, but Barbara Anne had to work the next two days," Henderson said. "With the hurricane out of the way, we had our second ceremony on Sept. 18 and then went on our honeymoon."
Training Saved Lives
Henderson credited arduous training last summer in the sweltering heat of Camp Shelby, Miss., with preparing local National Guardsmen for dealing with the hardships and dangers of duty in Iraq.
"They really drove us," he said. "But that was a good thing. I see it as a life-saver." Henderson said that because of his age, younger soldiers tended to watch how he reacted to the rugged training.
"I guess they figured if an older guy like me could make it, they could make it," he said.
He noted that wearing an estimated 60 pounds of military equipment, including body armor and a helmet, during training was difficult, but helped the National Guardsmen get into top physical condition.
"Just wearing the equipment makes you lose weight," Henderson said. "You could be in the best physical condition of your life if you wanted to be."
In Iraq, Henderson said, the physical requirements weren’t as bad as he had feared because the 2/278th scout platoon, of which he was a part, normally conducted patrols in vehicles rather than on foot.
Cold Greets Guardsmen
When the 2/278th arrived in Kuwait last November, Henderson said, the unit’s scouts were sent ahead of the unit’s main body to Forward Operating Base Bernstein in northeastern Iraq, Henderson said.
He noted that he and many other former members of the 2/278th’s Greeneville-based Troop G were among the scouts who went ahead of the unit’s main body to FOB Bernstein, which then was manned by a North Carolina National Guard unit.
"They were super guys," Henderson said of the members of the North Carolina unit that the 2/278th relieved at FOB Bernstein. "They moved out of their bunker into a tent so we could move into it when we arrived."
He explained that the 2/278th scouts conducted joint patrols of the area surrounding FOB Bernstein with the North Carolina National Guardsmen.
"If you don’t patrol outside the wire (the base perimeter), the enemy gets more active," he said. "Their scouts had to stay (until we were ready to take over)."
He noted that the 2/278th scouts went on joint day and night patrols with their North Carolina counterparts and also participated in roadblocks and placement of nighttime observations posts.
Henderson praised the leadership of his platoon and the entire 2/278th. "You couldn’t ask for a better leader than Sgt. 1st Class Ronnie Houston (the 2/278th’s scout platoon sergeant)," Henderson said.
He also singled out Lt. Jared Britz, the leader of the scout platoon, for praise. "He was assigned to us at Camp Shelby," Henderson said of Britz. "He’s a great kid."
Lt. Col. Franklin McCauley, the 2/278th’s commanding officer, also received praise from Henderson. "He really looks out for his men," Henderson said. "It doesn’t matter what your rank is. He always has time to stop and talk to you."
Henderson said the weather was "bitter cold" when the 2/278th scouts arrived at FOB Bernstein.
"You can’t imagine how cold the desert can be," he said. "And it didn’t get any warmer, until one day it suddenly got hot.
"It was cold. It rained, and the wind blew all the time."
But Henderson had not been in Iraq long before he had to return home on emergency leave due to a family medical emergency.
After returning to Iraq following his leave for the family medical emergency, he subsequently applied for, and eventually was granted, a hardship discharge.
Although he originally had been assigned as a "section leader" in the 2/278th scout platoon, Henderson said, he spent the balance of his time in Iraq pulling guard duty at Forward Operating Base Bernstein.
That meant sometimes spending 14 hours on a guard post in frigid temperatures. "That only left 10 hours to sleep, wash clothes, write letters and call home," he said.
Extreme Heat Arrives
Henderson said there was no spring-like transition from winter’s chill to summer-like heat.
"It just started getting hotter and hotter before I left," he said.
Henderson said members of the North Carolina unit that the 2/278th replaced told them that summer temperatures reached 150 degrees last year in the FOB Bernstein area. "We found that hard to believe," Henderson said. "But after what we’ve seen so far, it’s possible.
"It’s in the 100s there now, and it’s just May. So far, nothing they (the North Carolinians) told us has been an exaggeration."
Henderson said he was amazed to see Iraqi shepherds wearing only sandals and robes amid the winter chill.
He added that life seems to have changed little in 2,000 years for the Iraqis in the area around FOB Bernstein. About the only evident change, he said, was the presence of satellite TV "dishes" on some of the mud huts in which most of the rural population lives.
Electric power, he said, is supplied by generators located in the villages. He noted that the area has three distinct ethnic groups: Arabs, Kurds and Turks.
The three groups, he said, speak different languages, but many have learned to speak at least some English as well as their native language.
"The one language everyone understood was English," he said.
Henderson noted that English was a mandatory class in the best schools in the Iraqi city of Tuz, the area’s largest city.
Similar To Vietnam War
Henderson said he feels there are similarities between the Vietnam War and the conflict in Iraq. "When we were training at Camp Shelby, they told us, 'This is not Vietnam,'" Henderson said. "But it's (the situation in Iraq) identical. There’s no difference. The reaction of the enemy is so similar I couldn’t believe it."
He noted that the Viet Cong used terror tactics in Vietnam, just as insurgents in Iraq do today.
One difference from Vietnam for Henderson, he said, is that he wasn’t as directly involved with the Iraqis as he was with the Vietnamese.
He noted that in Vietnam, he had been assigned to work directly with a South Vietnamese unit.
"My life depended on the Vietnamese," he said. "In Iraq, I was on a post surrounded by other Americans."
Plenty Of Food
"The unit we replaced — the North Carolina boys — left us all kinds of food," Henderson said. "And people from home sent us all kinds of 'goody boxes.'
"It was just like Christmas every time someone got a good box from home. Churches, school groups, and family members all sent us boxes. Usually, when someone got a good box, they would crack it open, and everyone would get to jump in."
He noted that living quarters were equipped with electric ovens that allowed soldiers to “heat and eat” all manner of frozen food.
Henderson noted that members of the 2/278th set up their own small "post exchange" store at Forward Operating Base Bernstein near Tuz, Iraq, and stocked it with non-issue items that soldiers might want.
"I bought this watch in the PX," Henderson said, while displaying a digital watch.
He noted that the battery in the watch he was wearing when he arrived in Iraq "died as soon as I hit sand."
Unable to find a replacement battery in Iraq, he bought a replacement watch. "You could buy all the watches you wanted," he said. "You just couldn’t get batteries."
'The Children Loved Us'
"The children loved us," Henderson said of Iraqi youngsters. "Wherever we went, the children just ganged around, and we would go to them, too. We gave them things, not out of charity, but because we wanted to help. And they appreciated it."
Henderson said he believes that both the 2/278th soldiers and the Iraqis with whom they dealt came to respect each other.
"No matter what their language is, you can tell what people are like," Henderson said. "They learned that we weren’t the satanic people they had been told about. And we learned they weren’t the bad people we thought they might be."
Photo Special to the Sun - Sgt. 1st Class Larry Henderson, of Greeneville, posed for the photo above amid the desolate terrain of northeastern Iraq late last year while serving there with the Second Squadron of the Army National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team. He has since returned home.
Story Copyright to The Greeneville Sun