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World War II guy, but I know a bit about the War
Between
the States. We took an interest in each other.”
Downen
and Berndt swapped information. “She told me where her tent was,
and I told her about mine.” Soon the two sergeants were gathering
together at nighttime to enjoy Downen's “shoebox entertainment system,”
a portable DVD player he took with him to the mountains.
It
wasn't just that they were both history buffs, says Downen. “She's
also a hunter and gun nut like me. Becky likes to travel. And she
has several dogs,” three Labradors and a beagle. “I've always liked
animals,” he says.
There
was something else too. As Downen sweeps through the finer points
of the woman who would become his wife, suddenly his voice becomes
flush with excitement when he gets to Michigan, Berndt's home state.
“She was just crazy about her state and her life there,” he says.
The medic spent nights telling warm stories about her parents and
her low-key life out in Dorr, Mich., a town of 6,000 residents about
170 miles west of Detroit. There her parents own a 62-acre estate.
She spoke about venturing across its open fields, into its forests
to hunt game. “I was intrigued,” says the sergeant.
It
didn't take long for him to realize that was the kind of place he
wanted to be, the kind of life he wanted to live. So Downen made
it simple. “I just sat down” in the tent “and said, ‘You're the
most intriguing, wonderful woman I've ever met in my life. I'd really
like to marry you.' And she said yes.”
A
true Texas gentleman, Downen took the extra step of writing her
father from the Afghan mountains, asking him for his 27-year-old
daughter's hand. “I told him that if he gave his permission, I would
be a respectful son-in-law.” Downen chuckles, remembering Berndt's
father's reply. “His letter said, ‘You don't need my permission.'
He said that he met his daughter as a naked baby, that he's been
proud of her ever since and had full faith in her decision.”
Today
Downen is indeed a full member of the family, living upstairs with
his wife in the Berdnts' two-story home. Free now to use their ammo
for sport, the two sergeants make routine trips to the family forest.
“We love to kill stuff out there,” he says. “I hope that doesn't
give you a one-sided view of rednecks.”
With
Downen, it doesn't. Given specific questions, the sergeant pulls
back from the personal to address once again the larger picture,
informed commentary on the War on Terror no yokel could possibly
provide.
The
Big Picture
For
a man who never went to college, Downen maintains some rigorous
academic standards, refusing to comment on anything he hasn't studied
first-hand. He won't speak about Iraq because he never served in
Iraq, “and I don't want to talk out of my ass.”
The
sergeant does share his views, though, about the bigger picture:
the War on Terror and the twisted approach of the left and right.
Both political parties, he says, have maintained a “lock-tight orthodox
view” of the international community, one that distorts truths that
are obvious from the ground.
As
Downen phrases it, “You got the liberal view, the conservative view,
and then you got reality.”
That
misguided orthodoxy, he says, has kept both parties from recognizing
“the Islam factor” as the driving force behind the terror attacks.
“The left won't acknowledge it because it put their multicultural
view in the trash. The right won't acknowledge it because of the
oil.”
If
there is a long-term solution to the terror wars, he says, it lies
there — in terminating our commitment to oil and ceasing to enrich
the Middle East's oil-rich nations. “We got to drain the money from
them, develop our own resources, find alternative energy.” If we
don't, says Downen, we're simply “funding the people who want to
kill us.” The sergeant lays out
the current wars as he sees them, an absurd cycle in which America
spends one dollar on oil, which eventually reaches the insurgents,
then a second dollar to fight the dollar in the insurgents' hands.
Shutting
down that cycle will no doubt be difficult, but Downen suggest it
is possible with a long-term commitment to a revised energy policy.
That
said, an unmistakable exhaustion affects Downen's voice. The larger
issues are of interest to him, he says, but now that he's thousands
of miles from the battles of Afghanistan, quartered comfortably
with his new family in western Michigan, it's the little things
that are now Downen's focus.
He
speaks with enthusiasm about being back behind the lens, working
full-time as a military photographer with the Michigan National
Guard. Before his first stint as a combat photographer “I didn't
even know how to load a camera. Then,” he says, “it became my obsession.”
The
sergeant also speaks with pride about his wife's continuing service
as a counselor with Michigan's Veteran Affairs, informing soldiers
now returning from the war about their military benefits and offering
them psychological counseling. Downen rejects the stereotypical
image of the soul-scarred veteran returning home unable to function.
There are veterans like that out there, he says, but the ones he
served with in Afghanistan, though they faced serious threats and
witnessed unspeakable horrors, they were also strong dudes, not
“emotional jellyfish.”
Still,
the sergeant tells every veteran, take advantage of all the VA's
benefits, “benefits you've earned with your service,” including
the free psychological counseling.
“I
had my head checked,” he says, that trademark laugh back once again.
“I recommend that all soldiers coming back do the same.”
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