Chandrasekaran Rajiv - For love of country: what our veterans can teach us about citizenship, heroism, and sacrifice

Also by Howard Schultz

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THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A . KNOPF

Copyright 2014 by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies.

www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schultz, Howard.

For love of country : what our veterans can teach us about citizenship, heroism, and sacrifice / Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-101-87445-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-101-87446-2 (eBook) 1. Iraq War, 20032011

Biography. 2. Afghan War, 2001Biography. 3. Iraq War, 20032011VeteransUnited States. 4. Afghan War, 2001 VeteransUnited States. 5. VeteransUnited StatesBiography. 6. Conduct of life. I. Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. II. Title.

DS79.766.A1S38 2014

956.70443092 dc23

[B]

2014030240

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Random House: Stop All the Clocks, copyright 1940 and renewed 1968 by W. H. Auden; from W. H. Auden Collected Poems by W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Reservoir Media Management, Inc.: 8th of November by Kenny Alphin and John Rich, copyright 2005 Reservoir Media Music (ASCAP)/Reservoir 416 (BMI), administered by Reservoir Media Management, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Reservoir Media Management, Inc.

Jacket photograph MivPiv / iStock / Getty Images

Jacket design by Olivier Munday

Interior art: American flag charnsitr / Shutterstock; American flag support ribbon Adam Filipowicz / Shutterstock

v3.1_r1

For all those who served,

and for Sheri and Julie,

who share our gratitude for their courage and sacrifice.

On Memorial Day 2008, Leroy Petry should have been asleep. He toiled on the night shift, as did most of his fellow Army Rangers. But that morning, as the sun beat down on his plywood hut, nervous energy throbbed through his veins, and he tossed in his bunk.

The evening before, Petrys commanders had received word that a senior al-Qaeda operative might be within striking distance of their forward operating base in the hills of eastern Afghanistan. Petry was on his eighth combat deployment, and he had performed more airborne assaults than he could remember, yet he treated each one like his first rodeo. He always brought extra food, double-checked his gear, and thought through contingency plans.

Finally, Petry gave up on sleep, rolled out of his bunk, and stumbled into his platoons nearly empty tactical operations center. As he began to read his e-mail, he saw the watch officer nearby jolt upright. Go wake everyone up, the officer barked.

Petry banged on doors and shook guys by their shoulders. Then he ran into the chow hall and grabbed a handful of beef jerky packets. When everyone assembled in the operations center, his restlessness was vindicated. He learned that his platoon would be heading out on a rare daylight mission to pursue the al-Qaeda operative.

After the briefing, he gathered his dozen-man squad of machine gunners. He knew they were concerned about swooping in at midday, when they couldnt rely on night-vision goggles to give them a distinct battlefield advantage. Youre on more even ground with them, warned Petry, a twenty-eight-year-old staff sergeant. Be prepared for anything.

As a pair of dual-rotor Chinook helicopters ferried the platoon toward a remote cluster of homes where its target was believed to be hiding, Petry could see his own apprehension mirrored on the faces of his fellow Rangers. He hadnt been on a daylight raid in four years.

Shots were heard as soon as the helicopters landed and the Rangers hustled off the back ramp. While most of the Americans fired back and charged toward the buildings, Petry hung back with the platoon leadertheir job was to command, not to kick down the doors themselves. As the Rangers started the search for their target, Petry heard over the radio that one of the squads had been delayed because it had initially entered the wrong building.

Im going to go with them, he told the platoon leader as he took off running. Along the way, he summoned Private First Class Lucas Robinson, a young member of the platoon, to join him.

Petry located the correct compound and stepped through a hole in the mud-brick wall that surrounded the outer courtyard, intending to catch up with the rest of the squad, which had already walked into a walled-off inner courtyard. As soon as he and Robinson entered, a burst of gunfire tore across the compound. Petry felt sharp pain in both of his thighs, but he mustered the strength to run toward a small outbuilding about twenty yards away, hoping its walls would provide protection from the gunmen, who had trained AK-47 rifles on the Rangers from a bunker at the far end of the courtyard. Robinson, who had been grazed on the side, followed behind.

As they crouched behind the building, Petry looked down at his legs. Blood seeped out of holes in each pant leg, but his bones felt intact, and no major blood vessels appeared to have been hit. A flesh wound, he thought. I can keep fighting.

Petry got on the radio to inform his platoon mates that he and Robinson had been shot. Then he pulled a thermobaric grenade from his vest and hurled it in the direction of the bunker. After it exploded, the incoming fire ceased.

At that moment, another Ranger, Sergeant Daniel Higgins, ran into the courtyard and joined Petry and Robinson next to the building. Higgins stood beside Robinson on one end of the ten-foot-long wall; Petry was on the other end, sitting on the dirt, peering around the corner. As Higgins inspected Robinsons wound, a grenade flew out of the bunker and landed ten yards from the Rangers. It detonated a second later, knocking Higgins and Robinson to the ground but leaving them unscathed.

Keep your heads down, Petry called out.

Fearing that the insurgents would converge from both sides of the building and kill all three of them, he glanced around the corner again. He spotted two fighters in the bunker, both with ammunition clips strapped to their chests.