Maj. Danny Sjursen
Worth dying for?
I used to command soldiers. Over the years, lots of them actually. In Iraq, Colorado, Afghanistan and Kansas. And I’m still fixated on a few of them like this one private first class in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2011.
All of 18, he was short, scrawny and popular. Nine months after graduating from high school, he’d found himself chasing the Taliban with the rest of our gang. At five foot nothing, I once saw him step into an irrigation canal and disappear from sight — all but the two-foot antenna on his radio.
In my daydreams, I always see the same scene, the moment his filthy, grizzled baby face reappeared above that ditch, a cigarette still dangling loosely from his lips. His name was Anderson and I can remember thinking at that moment. What will I tell his mother if he gets killed out here?
And then … poof … it’s 2017 again and I’m here in Kansas, pushing papers at Fort Leavenworth, those days in the field long gone. Anderson himself survived his tour of duty in Afghanistan, though I’ve no idea where he is today. A better commander might. Several of his buddies were less fortunate. They died, or found themselves short a limb or two, or emotionally and morally scarred for life.
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