Gold Star families and combat survivors open up about loss after 9/11
For Jessica Hovater Davis, Carlene Cross and David Brostrom, was a turning point, one that would send their sons to a remote and dangerous battlefield.
“He said, ‘You know, I want to go where nobody else wants to go,’ because, he said, ‘I don’t have any children, and I don’t have a wife,'” said Cross.
“We’ve become a unit”
Today, these Gold Star families are forever linked together because of one of the deadliest battles of the Afghanistan War: The Battle of Wanat. Nine American paratroopers from Chosen Company’s 173rd Brigade died that day. Twenty seven others were wounded in six hours of ferocious fighting after they were ambushed by 200 Taliban fighters, just 11 days before coming home.
Davis lost her younger brother, Army Corporal Jason Hovater. Cross lost her only son, Army Corporal Jason Bogar. Brostrom lost his eldest child, 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom.
“I don’t like wearing this Gold Star. I wear it with pride but I don’t like it. The grief never goes away,” Brostrom said.
“It’s a bond that nobody wants to share, but it’s a bond,” Davis said.
“We’ve become a unit,” Cross said.
Frankie Gay had no military ties until he lost his 22-year-old son, Army Corporal Pruitt Rainey at Wanat. But today he says the survivors of the battle are like family.
“Our connection together is probably the most important that has kept me above ground,” he said.
“We were fighting for each other”
Survivors of the battle, like platoon Sergeant David Dzwik and Gunner William Krupa knew the dangers, and so did the men they were fighting with. The phone calls home became increasingly frightening.
“We were talking and then he just dropped phone and he said, ‘I gotta go.’ But I could still hear everything. There were lots of gunshots and just a firefight that was happening. I just dropped to my knees and I just said, ‘God please don’t let it be this time,'” Davis said.
“They had the high ground, they had the numbers. They had surprise,” Dzwik said. “They made a crucial error in choosing that target. We were fighters. We were fighting for the right to go home and we were fighting for each other.”
“There’s very few things that day that I remember clearly. Watching Specialist Abad take his last breath in the foxhole next to him, those are definitely images that I will never forget,” Krupa said.
“They died saving each other’s lives”
But in the heat of the battle, there was heroism. Brostrom’s son and Davis’ brother ran into enemy fire to help their fellow soldiers. Cross and Gay’s sons died trying to save them.
“They went down there unarmed to engage the enemy with their bare hands. That’s pure love, when you do something like that,” Brostrom said.
“It was the depth of character in the soldiers that day that was awe inspiring. You don’t have words. Men doing very incredible things under fire to protect their brothers that they loved,” Dzwik said.
Cross said that was hard to hear. “They must have known that it was just gonna be a bloodbath. That’s who they were, you know,” she said.
They died just feet from each other. “They died saving each other’s lives, is what they did. So when they found the bodies, they were right next to each other,” Brostrom said.
“It’s almost like a vicarious bond through our sons and parents to know that it’s like those are just bonds that will never break in this world. To know Jason was surrounded by men who would give their life for him and he would give his life for them is really, it’s the most painful story of my life, but it’s also the most beautiful,” Cross said.
Dzwik was wounded that day protecting Brostrom’s body.
“Being a leader from that battle, it takes a long time, you know, you don’t make the choices of who lives and who dies, but at the same time you still feel guilt of not being able to protect everybody,” he said. “When I can help the family, be protective of them, I feel like I am carrying on what I was doing.”
Krupa is paying it forward as a paramedic and firefighter. “I’m here because of their sons, their sacrifice. And as far as what I do with the rest of my life, I feel like I’ve been blessed, I’ve been saved,” Krupa said.
Looking for closure
Eleven years after that battle in Afghanistan, at least some of these families want closure. “We have lost so much blood. We have sacrificed so much,” Gay said.
“I agree,” Cross said. “There has to be a way we can exit with honor.”
They all say they want peace, but talk of negotiating with the enemy is difficult to accept. “I have a personal problem with having the Taliban come here to the United States. To me, it dishonors our sons,” Brostrom said.
Soldiers, whose selfless sacrifice is their enduring legacy.
“There’s a scripture in the Bible that we have just really clung to. And it is, ‘Greater love has no man than that. That he laid down his life for another.’ And that’s what they did for each other,” Davis said.
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