Beyond the Point(129)
Mandy’s cadet barracks room during Cadet Basic Training, 2004.
Courtesy of Mandy Psiaki
Mandy (third from the right) and friends leave campus for an afternoon lunch in Highland Falls. Tim Cunningham (third from the left) tips Mandy’s hat. First Lieutenant Timothy Cunningham died on April 23, 2008, when his vehicle turned over into a canal in Golden Hills, Iraq.
Courtesy of Mandy Psiaki
(6) What is one of your favorite stories from training at Camp Buckner as a yearling (sophomore)?
Kristin:
So there we were, two squads from my Buckner platoon, on foot in the woods, head-to-toe in our battle gear, completely lost, and led by our very incompetent cadet platoon sergeant. He starts to hear a loudspeaker far away and he’s convinced we have walked back towards Camp Buckner proper. He thinks the loudspeaker is Guard Room making routine announcements. We move towards the sound. The path gets harder to follow and the brush gets thicker and thicker. Of course, I can’t keep my mouth shut, so I start loudly complaining that we are lost and need to turn around. The platoon sergeant gives me some sort of “if you make another peep, so help me” kind of rebuke. (See, I’m not much of a soldier.) Then we hear the loudspeaker start up again and it’s a lot louder. The voice on the loudspeaker says, “go ahead and secure one ten-round magazine and lock and load your weapons!”
We all immediately freak out, realizing that we are BEHIND THE FIRING RANGE! The new cadets in basic training are firing. All of us hit the dirt and we hear the sound of M16 fire for several minutes. We wait until we hear “no brass, no ammo, sergeant!” (which means that any extra rounds have been turned in—the range is closing). So, we get up, dust off, and start walking towards the range. We emerge through the wood line. Another cadet sees us and announces, “Look, new cadets! These are yearlings!” It was hysterical. (New cadets don’t normally see any yearlings until after the summer is over, because the cadre is made up of only cows and firsties.) Typical Buckner. Getting yourself into tricky situations and then having to wiggle your way out.
All camo’ed up at Camp Buckner.
Courtesy of Mandy Psiaki
(7) What job did you do during your deployment(s)? What were your expectations of deployment (Idealistic? Skeptical?) and how did the reality differ from your expectations? Did you feel that you made an impact?
Charlsey:
I was working as the headquarters company commander for the Special Troops Battalion in 4th Infantry Division. Basically, I was part of the support staff for the division commander. My boss was a little off his rocker and had all kinds of bogus ideas about how to keep morale alive and inspire people during the deployment. He came up with an idea to have a 4th of July “fair” of sorts on the grounds of the division headquarters. He wanted to have camels there that people could ride. So it was my job to find the camels. We housed them in our motorpool for a few days before the 4th of July and then debuted them for the fair.
It was nuts. We had NO idea how to deal with camels, or what to feed them or anything. My soldiers got such a kick out of it, but when there were people losing their lives out there and encountering danger and gunfire everyday, it really felt odd for this to be a part of my job. I did lots of things along those lines, like dress up like a turkey for Thanksgiving, take care of a pregnant race horse for a general, and countless other things that people would never expect to do during a deployment.
Mandy:
I was a finance officer and essentially ran a bank that had an $11 million cash holding limit. I paid out $56 million in Iraqi dinar and U.S. dollars while I was in Iraq. The money was used on various projects—anything from road improvements to reimbursing an Iraqi for a farm animal that we injured unintentionally.
One of the most impactful things I did while I was deployed was work at a burn clinic for Iraqis that was sponsored and run by American medics. Almost all of the burn victims were women and children (mostly girls) and that is because being burned was a form of punishment and something that men would not do to other males. There were little girls who came in that had been dipped in oil and had burns all the way up their legs. The craziest part of all is that oftentimes it was their fathers who brought them to the clinic. It was hard for me to understand how someone could hurt a child and then ask for medical help. But we helped anyway.
Counting money for disbursement in Iraq.
Courtesy Mandy Psiaki
American makeshift burn center outside of Mandy’s FOB in Iraq.
Courtesy Mandy Psiaki
Mandy with patient in the burn unit.
Courtesy Mandy Psiaki
(8) It’s safe to say that every cadet who has attended West Point in the last decade has known someone who was killed in action while serving in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tell me about a friend that you lost.
Charlsey:
Emily Perez was a plebe in my squad when I was a yearling. She was so smart, ran track, tutored all kinds of cadets in different subjects while we were at West Point. She was the first African-American cadet sergeant major at West Point. I was in Iraq when the notification that she’d been killed in action came across the wire. It is such a shock in your body, when you lose someone that was so alive and vibrant. It was so shocking. I felt so alone—but unfortunately, we were taking so many casualties in [2006–2007] that it just became another day’s list. It sounds so callous, but in that environment, you can’t stop working. You just have to keep going. I think in all of those years, I only had the chance to go to one memorial ceremony.