Former Fort Drum chaplain writes ‘Memoirs From Babylon’

The Triangle of Death had a stranglehold on chaplain Jeffrey A. Bryan, choking his faith and making him question his purpose.

It was Feb 27, 2007, and as he describes in his book — “Memoirs From Babylon: A Combat Chaplain’s Life in Iraq’s Triangle of Death” — it was the most horrible thing he ever witnessed:

“We did not have long to wait before the recovery team arrived. I helped the medics carry the body bags — still radiating heat from the burned corpses inside — on stretchers into the miniature emergency room. We carefully laid them out on waist-high platforms so that the medical team could positively identify them. ... Standing next to the bodies of the men, I realized just how sacred being a military chaplain was.”

Many soldiers he served with at Fort Drum appreciated that sacred purpose. From August of 2006 to October 2007, Capt. Bryan served with the deployed 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry unit based at Fort Drum.

Capt. Bryan’s self-published poignant book tells the tale of how a rebellious teen growing up in Kansas first joined the army with plans of fulfilling his childhood dreams of being a frontline infantry soldier in the midst of the action. The dreams were first fueled as a boy by action figures along with Vietnam and World War II movies.

But his first Army experience from 1991 to 1996 was frustrating. He served with the Kansas National Guard, Camp Greaves in South Korea and with the 502nd Infantry Regiment at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Operation Desert Storm was over before he finished basic training. He wasn’t called to operations in Somalia.

But through meeting key people after his Army duty, his life took a faith-based turn. In 1997 he attended Central Bible College in Springfield, Mo., graduating in 2001, and became involved in inner city volunteer work with the Los Angeles County Teen Challenge. He also served in associate pastorships at churches in Kansas and Missouri.

After completing a master of divinity degree at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Capt. Bryan re-entered active duty service with the Army in 2006.

He was about to fulfill his wish of nearly two decades earlier of serving in a war zone.

“I knew Iraq was a monster,” he said. “I prayed about it and thought, ‘You know, the infantry is going to take the brunt of the battle,’” and that’s where he wanted to be.

In the thick of it

While serving with the 1,200-member 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, Capt. Bryan developed a reputation of being on or near the front lines. Soldiers came to depend on that when disaster struck as commanders sought him out to comfort the wounded, the dying and their comrades.

Speaking from his home near Fort Bragg, N.C., where he is a chaplain with a support unit, Capt. Bryan said he felt he was just doing his job.

“I wanted to be near the men whose job was to be out there in front,” he said.

Capt. Bryan said it’s rare for a military chaplain to do what he did. Either by assignment or choice, he said most military chaplains don’t often venture into dangerous areas. He recalled one occasion when a commander called his unit and tried to take him out of harm’s way. But he won the argument with his unit commander to keep doing what he was doing.

“I said, ‘Sir, there are 19-year-old guys out there. The point of my ministry is out there. If you take me away from them, why not just send me back to the states? What’s the point of me being over here?’”

Dangerous triangle

In the fall of 2006, Capt. Bryan’s unit entered a region south of Baghdad so violent it was dubbed the Triangle of Death. It became a killing ground for several 10th Mountain Division soldiers.

Capt. Bryan said his faith was tested but he never regretted his decision.

“But I questioned myself a little bit on why I had wanted it so bad, and now I got it,” he said. “The reality slaps you in the face. I questioned where it was all going and why some things had to work out the way they did.”

He gave a few examples.

“You know, like three guys shooting at a bad guy,” he said. “He just keeps running and they’re hitting him but he’s not dying. Well, that guy is going to come back and kill somebody later.”

And the case of the soldier in his unit who was standing 100 meters away from a mortar round.

“A piece of shrapnel travels through a perfect little tunnel of space and hits him in the head and he falls over dead,” he said. “You go, ‘Why?’”

But Capt. Bryan said he had no illusions of what his mission was.

“War is war,” he said. “It’s not pretending to be nice. It’s not pretending to be fair. It’s going to come down to that you are going to hunt and kill each other. It stinks, but I always fall back on that’s what war is. So I can’t be mad at God or my men or me or anybody else over there.”

Capt. Bryan gained strength from the reception he received from battle-weary troops.

“It’s that reflective feeling that I sensed from them,” he said. “Like when I got out of the Humvee, it was something in their eyes that appreciated it.”

But he was quick to add: “It wasn’t about me. It was what I represented.”

returning home

In the last chapter of his book, “The Road Home,” Capt. Bryan recalls his unit being flown out of the Triangle of Death to a safer area in Iraq as it prepared to return to Fort Drum. He enjoyed his first night of risk-free sleep in a year.

“The challenge now was to believe that leisure was a real thing,” he wrote.

Capt. Bryan was asked last week if that sense of leisure seems real yet.

“It’s always in the back of your mind,” he said of the war zone that took away thoughts of leisure. “It’s always there — like, ‘Wow, I’m really thankful for all that I have; that I’m alive is probably the biggest one.”

Upon his return, Capt. Bryan spent only a few weeks at Fort Drum before he was re-assigned to Fort Bragg. He lives in Fayetteville with his wife, Tanisha, and daughter.

He said he doesn’t know how long he will remain in the Army, but he looks back fondly at his time at Fort Drum.

“There’s nowhere like the 10th Mountain Division,” he said. “It has the best leadership, the best soldiers and just the best little world up there. I miss it like crazy.”