Sometimes, there’s a stupid sort of contest among soldiers. I’ll call it the “Hardcore Olympics.” Soldiers and veterans will tease each other or argue about who had the toughest job or roughest deployment. At its worst, the Hardcore Olympics will have infantry guys proclaiming, “If you ain’t infantry, you ain’t nothing.” I wish those guys luck without the support of soldiers supplying food, water, and ammo. I say it takes everyone.
One noncombat job that combat soldiers depend upon is what the military calls “commo.” That is, communications. There’s terrible trouble when communications break down.
Staff Sgt. Corinthian Kelly was a signal and support specialist. He sounded apologetic when he told me he enlisted for college money, as though the Hardcore Olympics had taught him it was better to say he enlisted for adventure or freedom. The fact is, he enlisted in 2004, with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars ensuring just about every soldier would deploy. That’s courage.
His first deployment was as PFC to Iraq in 2010. “I was basically an internet guy,” he said. Keeping units connected to command and soldiers connected to home and to one another is vital. Kelly described this deployment as his introduction. “I got to see what the real world is like, how the Army works.” He pulled a lot of guard duty but learned a lot about his communications job through field practice.
He did so well that even though he was a mere specialist, an officer specifically chose him for an Afghanistan deployment in 2013. He would be in charge of the entire unit’s communications. He was nervous, worried he wasn’t ready.
But the Army shipped him to Logar Province on a forward operating base, or FOB, which featured two M777 howitzer cannons. These guns provided fire support for a wide area. The enemy knew the guns were there, so the FOB was frequently attacked.
“Every single day in Afghanistan, there were at least two bombs in our area,” Kelly said. “I saw guys get killed. I saw the enemy get killed.” At first, he’d scramble to the shelter during mortar attacks, wearing all his gear. Later, he merely walked fast in his armor, vest, and helmet with his weapon.
He had the vitally important job of keeping the Army in his area communicating. He had to encrypt information and provide encryption for all commo devices, including radios, and battle information for the cannons. He had to maintain computers. If a data cable was severed somewhere, he had to dig it up and fix it. In addition, he received a medal for learning Afghan radio systems and training Afghan National Army soldiers on their own equipment. But he was probably the most popular when he started connecting soldiers’ Xbox video game systems. That’s valuable R&R for a trooper.
“What was the best part of your Afghanistan deployment?” I asked him.
Kelly answered without hesitation. “Everybody who left for the deployment came home with no injuries. I’m thrilled about that. Secondly, I went in nervous and left with awards, promotion, and recognition.”
He offered apologies. Few soldiers like to brag. But I appreciated his honesty. He was very young and was assigned a lot of responsibility in a difficult job. And he got it done. That’s what being a soldier is all about.
He and I had discussed our feelings about President Joe Biden’s betrayal of our Afghanistan mission. “My heart’s broken,” he told me. He spoke of the good Afghans who had trusted us. “To see [their] desperation is just like … we could have kept our promises.”
I asked him a question I ask a lot of veterans: Are you glad you enlisted?
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Kelly answered, “[Enlisting] was one of the best decisions I ever made. So much of what I have now comes from that 10 years of serving.”
He’d probably rate high in the Hardcore Olympics, but what’s really important is that he did his job well and, in so doing, helped keep his fellow soldiers alive.
Trent Reedy, the author of several books, including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.