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| Volume No. 1 Issue No. 46 - Friday August 15, 2003 |
Baghdad on my Family's Mind
 by: Dr Emanuel Finn
Sergeant Kentish R. Samuel is a member of the District of Columbia Army National Guard 547Th Transportation Company. He and one hundred and fifty members of his company (which included another Dominican from Wesley) were mobilized in early February 2003 in support of U.S military operations in Iraq and Kuwait. The company departed Washington DC in February after a brief ceremony at an Air Force Base just outside of the Nations capital.
During the grim and sad farewell ceremony, families were crying, hugging, kissing and saying good byes to husbands, daughters, fathers, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews who were heading off to war. The depressing occasion reminded us of another soldier who left La Plaine, that small tight knit eastern agricultural community which nestles between the Atlantic Ocean and the foothills of Morne Goveneaur, in 1969 for the war front in the jungles of Vietnam. That twenty-four year old young man left for South East Asia three (3) months before my nephew Kentish was born. See story.
Kentish was born and raised in La Plaine and attended the La Plaine Government School and the Clifton Dupigny Technical College. In 1986 he joined his dad on St. Thomas, USVI. Shortly after, he came to live with me in Washington DC.
He attended and graduated from Wilson High School in Northwest Washington DC and excelled in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Core (JROTC) reaching the rank of lieutenant. I convinced my nephew to join his high school's ROTC because of its strong tradition since 1916 of preparing and training young men (and now women) for life and the military in exchange for scholarship support.
In order to be an officer in any branch of the U.S. military, one has to attend college and or be a member of the ROTC. Students undergo officer training and agree to serve for some years in the U.S. Arm Forces after graduation.
I was pleased with his decision to join his high school ROTC. As a young male immigrant from the islands, the organization would provide a different way of thinking in order to succeed in this competitive and complex American society. I was also pleased at his decision due to my own positive experiences as a Boy Scout at La Plaine School and later as a member of the Dominica Grammar School unit of the Dominica Cadet Corps. These two organizations provided discipline, direction and helped shaped my early life.
After graduating from high school in 1988, Kentish joined the U.S Marine Corps. He served with a marine amphibious assault unit attached to a battleship carrier during the 1991 Desert Storm /Shield Gulf war. We were relived when the Gulf war was over quickly. It meant that he would return to the relative safety of his marine base at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and out of imminent danger in a war zone.
Kentish told me he was also was involved in the evacuation of American citizens and providing security to the U.S. embassy in Liberia in 1990 during that country�s first civil war. His Marine Corps unit was also involved in facilitating humanitarian aid to refugees and serving as a back up rapid reaction combat force in Monrovia to Nigerian and Ghanaian peace keeping forces.
An unlettered Liberian army Master Sergeant named Samuel K. Doe led a military coup, which overthrew and executed leaders of President Tolbert�s regime on a beach in Monrovia 1980. He declared himself President of the Liberian Republic in April 1980, a country founded by former American slaves in the 19th century. President Doe in turn was overthrown, tortured and killed by another rebel force in 1990.
Doe�s torture and execution triggered factional fighting between different ethic groups, government and rebel forces. This also resulted in a humanitarian crisis with thousands of refugees, untimely deaths from diseases such as cholera and dysentery, starvation, revenge and indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians.
Kentish said that his brief experience in Liberia witnessing starvation, despair and death of Africans by Africans had a tremendous impact on him. He could not understand how and why so many African countries continue to fail so miserably and shamefully today.
In1993, Kentish left the Marine Corps and returned to civilian life. Due to his love of the military he became a National Guardsman with the DC Army National Guard attached to the 547th Transportation Company. His duties as a Guardsman meant that he only attended military drills and training one weekend a month (weekend warrior) and two weeks every summer.
His company transports heavy military hard wear such as tanks, humvees, bradley fighting vehicles, and trucks to the war front. Officially it is not a forward advancing or combat company. It a supply support unit replenishing the front lines. But all that is subject to change in time of war. During Operation Desert Shield /Desert Storm the 547th logged more than 750,00 accident free miles and was part of the 553 Combat Support Battalion.
In spite of the fact that there are about 156,000 U.S troops in the Iraq-Kuwait Theater of Operations, every time the TV flashes that another U.S soldier is hurt in Iraq there is an uneasy pause among us. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and the other Dominican citizens who are involve with Operations Free Iraq.
Military records indicate that there are about 209 Dominican Citizens in the U.S Arm Forces. The exact number in the Kuwait- Iraqi Theater of Operations is unknown. May the good Lord keep them safe and remove them out of harm�s way.
Kentish�s absence was felt most poignantly this past July at the annual (must attend) La Plaine picnic in New Jersey. New Jersey and Oxford, England have the two largest La Plaine communities (Jean Ova) outside of the village. The annual picnic in central Jersey is a reunion of our people who reside all over the U.S., Canada, the USVI and other locations.
Two weeks ago at a Sunday family summer cook out at his mother�s (my sister) home in Maryland, everyone was present except him. His white Acura Legend has been safely parked in her driveway since he departed for the Middle East in February. His loving six-year-old daughter Kayla talked about her dad all afternoon and early evening while dancing to Zouk music. She is not allowed to watch TV news dealing with the war effort in Iraq.
The last we heard from Kentish a couple of weeks ago is that he was providing security at an installation outside the Baghdad International Airport along the banks of the Tigris river. As my family in the Washington DC area got ready to mail a parcel with goodies to him, we wondered when he will be coming home to Maryland.
The week in January this year before Kentish�s company received its deployment orders he had already booked and paid his flight to Dominica for carnival. He was looking forward to seeing and participating in the carnival celebrations due to the fact that the last time he saw carnival was in 1987.
We hope he comes home soon and visits the land of his birth where it all began for him. We would feel much better knowing that he is getting dizzy from laughter of jokes and idle gossip while roasting manicou and breadfruits with friends along the banks of the Sari-Sari, Laronde and Taberi rivers.
For now he is probably dizzy from fear and stress of war in the more than 100-degree temperatures along the banks of the Tigres and Euphrates rivers half a world away in very hostile, unfriendly and unforgiving territory.
We hope and pray that this conflict ends soon and the troops rejoin their love ones. This more than anything else would spare the soldiers and their families the mental anguish and agony which we all are enduring.
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