As the nation honors veterans today, the Farmers’ Harvest wanted to share some details of the military service of some of the faculty.

Not Like The Movies

The call of duty has taken social studies teacher Charles Andrews, staff sergeant, United States Army Special Forces, to many parts of the world, including Bosnia, Germany, Afghanistan, Egypt and Kuwait. As a Special Operations soldier, Andrews has been put in many unique situations that do not always end with a pile of dead enemy soldiers and a Michael Bay-style explosion.

“Really the essence of it for me has always been problem solving,” Andrews said. “Movies always show parachuting and capturing bad guys and all that. That kind of stuff gets all the glory, but what really matters in Special Operations is going into an austere environment to a culture completely different than your own and operating that way for months at a time.”

Andrews was among the first soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan, a country with a long history of hardship and conflict.

“Life’s real cheap in Afghanistan,” Andrews said. “We had a saying, ‘Nothing is alive in Afghanistan without the permission of the people who happen to be there at that moment.’”

Andrews and his team linked up with the Northern Alliance, a loose partnership between tribes allied against the Taliban.

“We were going against what was called HTAQ [Hostile Taliban and al-Qaeda],” Andrews said. “Half the time we tried to keep the Northern ‘Alliance’ from fighting amongst each other.”

A warlord of the Tajiks, a tribe that was part of the Northern Alliance, named Fadah, who was self-described as insane, kidnapped the sons of an elder from another allied tribe, the Hazara.

“That can collapse the alliance and really destroy our mission,” Andrews said. “There were about 250 armed fighters with AK-47s and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] around his compound. So it’s just me and five Americans and an interpreter, and we went in there and demanded the release of these hostages.

“So I go in there as a 28-year-old American Special Operations soldier, and I had to go in there and invoke essentially the power of the United States.”

After deliberating with the Tajiks, Andrews and his team successfully negotiated the release of the two sons of the Hazara elder.

“The thing that was really cool was the next day the father of those two sons came to our safe house and thanked me,” Andrews said. “I’ve gotten medals for certain things I’ve done in the army but that father thanking me for the lives of his sons meant more to me and my teammates than 10 medals.”

Military Mechanic

Social studies teacher and coach Steve Badyna served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a M1A1 tank mechanic and an M88 tank driver.

“If I could have done it all over again, I would have gone active duty,” Badyna said. “I got kicked out of A&M and my parents were like ‘go do something.’ I grew up an Army brat on Fort Hood. I just always liked the Marine Corps, I liked their uniforms, I liked the stigma associated with the Marines so I went into the recruiters’ office and said ‘are there any reserve units around here?’”

Badyna was a 4th echelon mechanic, meaning that he could do anything to the tank but pull the transmission.

“Basically we just eat a lot of dust,” Badyna said. “An M88 can go maybe 25 miles an hour downhill with a tailwind, while the M1A1’s are just flying. An M88 is like a tow truck for tanks. It’s got a boom and a wench on it and all that kind of stuff. Basically what we try to do is try to follow along with the tank company.”

If a tank was damaged, it was Badyna and his crew’s job to repair it.

“If the tank has thrown it’s track, then we have to get out on the battlefield to try to fix that track,” Badyna said. “If it’s salvageable or maybe the crew’s injured inside, we can hook up and try to pull them off the firing line.”

Badyna was in the cycle to be deployed during the Gulf War, but he was never sent out.

“Nobody expected the ground war to last 100 hours,” Badyna said. “A lot of my buddies got to go, but I didn’t.”

Free Dinner

Andrews said his teaching experience has made him more comfortable with talking in front of people, and his military experience has helped him with things from medical training to confidence.

“One makes me better at the other, although one takes me away from the other,” Andrews said. “There have been many times where I’ve thought to myself, there no other place I’d rather be than right here, right now.”

For Veterans’ Day, Andrews has spoken to the faculty in the past, along with attending the LISD Community Veterans breakfast.

“I try to not to make it too a big of a deal, but I do take advantage of Applebee’s free veterans dinner,” Andrews said.