To Lose a Brother, an Interview with Donliegh Gaunky (@LastBrotherHome)
Brother is a common word that men use to portray a unifying bond between their causes no matter how disparate their backgrounds. Being in the profession of arms one starts calling his comrades “brother” almost the moment you leave Parris Island, Ft. Jackson, Great Lakes, or Lackland. Its a feel good word that I get chills of when I see Vietnam veterans use it at the Wall or just in general. It hurts me when they say it to me because I had it so much better. I graciously accept their comment and I turn the conversation to them, it is their memories I want to experience not my own.
But what happens when you lose a brother? A real brother. One of blood whom you had more in common with than your own parents? What happens when you carry your brother’s body home to your parents? That happened to a friend of mine ten years ago starting on November 18, 2005. I knew him as Donleigh Gaunky (@LastBrotherHome), Sergeant, US Army, intelligence analyst. We worked together on several projects in Hawaii but in the summer of 2005 we began to prepare for a deployment to Iraq. Don always had a serious look on his face and it was earned because of his time in the opening salvo of the Iraq War.
I tried to gleam what I could from the combat vets, him included, before this tour because it was my first combat tour. I got to know Don a little over the year we spent together on Oahu. But by the fall of 2005 he would be transformed by Fate and the actions of an enemy we struggled to find and analyze.
He was the third of four boys and he carried his youngest brother home. There’s no easy way to say that. Its brutality sunk it immediately when I wrote it but I remember hearing about the attack that took his brother ten years ago, it was brutal then as well. To cope with his lose he wrote a book about the days leading up to the attack and the days after he took his brother home. You can pick it up at Amazon.com: Last Brother Home. It is here where I interview him and let him tell his story:
(J): Thank you for talking with me. Its been almost ten years since your brother was killed on November 18th in Bayji, Iraq. Can you walk us through your day prior to the notification of the attack on your brother?
(Don): I was going off the 12-hour night shift actually. We were going through morning shift change when he was on his mission. After leading and getting a bit of breakfast I went for a run to keep myself physically active. I then went to sleep. When I came on shift about 11 hours later, 45 minutes before evening shift change, I went through the Significant Activities (SIGACT) list to see what happened while I was off shift.
Right before we got into the changeover brief, I saw the SIGACT that had my brother’s unit on it, entitled SVBIED/Vehicle Accident? I didn’t have time to review it again until after the brief was over. I then sent a message to his AKO [email]account asking him to let me know he was okay, that I didn’t need to know details, but just to let me know he was okay. In between working on the nights work, I would regularly check me AKO mail to see if Alex had responded. About two-tree hours later, I got an email from my dad letting me know Alex had been injured. I knew where and how. I sent the information to my OIC and NCOIC so that they knew what was going on. I wouldn’t find out that he had died until after I landed in Germany and arrived at Landstuhl about 36 hours later, about a day after everyone else in my family had gotten that change in condition news.
(J): How did your leadership handle it at the time? Did the gravity of what may have happened impact them?
(Don): When they found out severely injured he was my immediate supervisor and OIC tried to do everything they could to get me to be with him. He was still in country and getting ready to move to LSA Anaconda before flying off to Landstuhl, Germany. They went to contact company leadership to see that they could get things moving. Our Company Commander, when they knocked on his trailer, or so I was told said something to the effect that they couldn’t do anything until a Red Cross message was recieved and went back into his quarters. However, our First Sergeant, worked to get things moving in terms of paperwork and contacts with our higher headquarters. They weren’t able to get me on the C-130 MEDEVAC taking him to Landstuhl but I was pushed to get out of country as quick as they could. So initially the leadership response was mixed.
(J): Obviously the news hit you and your parents hard. But can you recall how everyone else in the unit acted? Do you remember how you were treated after the news came down?
(Don): Beyond a couple of officers and NCOs I don’t know that it [notice of my brother’s death] got was widly known among the unit. No real commentary or sentiment any particular way. My alternate knew something was up but didn’t say nor react ain any particular way beyond acknowledging he would assume my workload for the foreesable future. Most people probably had no idea or weren’t told until after I left probably so not to put everyone on edge or treat me differently. After I came back, there was a mixed reaction: some walking on eggshells, others didn’t find out until we got back from deployment, and then walked on eggshells for a while then. Only a couple would give me any support or push me to talk so as to help me move forward in both grief and in keeping up with work.
(J): What were your thoughts about that? The eggeshells and the way they approached you?
(Don): For a while it didn’t really matter because I was in a haze, so to speak, . But as I started coming out it [the avoidance] become frustrating. Both because they tried to avoid getting me to talk about how I was really doing or on more than a few occasions avoiding me as much as possible. What frustrated me more than the tip-toeing was the training we did not too long after I got back. Company leadership telling us we could be asked to go outside the wire at any moment and then not having it happen. I had asked not long after coming back to be allowed to go on one mission outside the wire in a convoy and was essentially denied that option, though not stated explicitly. The training, along with the eggshells and avoidance would frustrate me during the duration of the deployment.
(J): Why did you want to go outside the wire? As an intelligence analyst, what was the point? Or was it more personal?
(Don): I hadn’t been outside the wire since my first deployment. I wanted to see if things had changed since then. But also to know for myself that that Anthony’s loss had been worth it personally. But it would of served a dual purpose because I was an open source analyst and wanted the benefit of seeing the lay of the land.
(J): Can you briefly talk about how important it is for an intel analyst to see the land and experience the convoy/patrol?
(Don): One, it puts things into perspective in understanding why we do what we do. It lets us know why it is important that the information we provide is as accurate as it can be. Two, it lets us see the end state of the work we’ve done previously. Three, it takes us out of the ivory tower and reminds us not to get too comfortable in our FOB lives, because so many others don’t have the option. Four, it helps us to gain trust of the local population, so that both can get help from them and work to help them in kind. Analysts should not get too comfy in the fact that we end up largely on FOBs. We need to have more exposure to appreciate what it is we do and why. That’s what I believe anyway.
(J): We’ve talked about how little you have in common with other Gold Star Families before. Have you met any other service members who brought their siblings home?
(Don): I’ve been told that it has happened but I have yet to meet anyone who has. The one’s I’ve heard about have also not done it the same way I have. They either bring their relative to Dover Air Force Base and then meet them when the escort from Dover brings their loved one home, or they do the escort duty from Dover, but miss bringing them back home from country, or close to it such as from Landstuhl. I have yet to meet or even hear of anyone who bypassed Dover completely… no official dignified transfer on coming back to US soil at an airport further west, from Landstuhl, and then on home from there. So as unique as the situation is in general, mine is unfortunately even more so.
(J): Your story is almost like that from Saving Private Ryan but like Private Ryan you stayed by coming back after the service for your brother. I know when I heard you had left for Wisconsin to take your brother Antony home I was thinking there was no way you were coming back. I know that no one would of blamed you if you stayed with your parents or even went back to our station in Hawaii. So why did you come back? Was that even an option for you?
(Don): In my mind it wasn’t. I felt I had things to finish and people to support. I know that there had been discussion about this by numerous officers while I was away. My OIC fought to have me come back. Her reasoning for it and I think there was definitely some validity to it. It was that my going back to Hawaii would have left me without anyone I knew to work with and thus without any kind of real support network to keep an eye on me, and that I would be comfortable going to if necessary. The thought was that I would do something stupid if I went back to Hawaii, such as commit suicide, in response to the loss and being told I could not finish out what I had started.
(J): What did your parents say? Did they understand? How did you justify your return to Iraq while they mourned?
(Don): My dad understood but my mom didn’t. She eventually did. I don’t doubt that it was hard on them but then my older brother who was in the Navy at the time and came home from his deployment to help bury our little brother, went back to his deployment as well. It was understood that it was what we both had to do and they understood, for me at least, that not doing it would have been worse that merely returning and enduring that ‘risk’. I don’t try to justify putting off mourning while they did mourn. I can’t. There is no reason, other then, at the time at least, it was what had to be done, and they knew that I knew that, and that for me, it was simply not an option. My mind had already been made up.
(J): What about your brother David? How did he take it?
(Don): Going back. He knew for me it wasn’t an option. For him, I’m sure that if he could have had it his way, he would have merely returned back to his home port. The Navy didn’t quite see it that way, even though the ship was coming towards the end of its deployment and could have done, largely, without him. They flew him back to his ship on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I know the loss hit him hard. Like me, he had to put off mourning. He didn’t have to put it off as long as I did, but I know he still had to, and that it has taken time for him to grieve for the loss.
(J): So, now you sketch drawings, have written a few books, given television interviews, and even a TEDx talk at your college
University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse. I remember a quiet, reserved, almost shy guy who I believe I once said I was going to get drunk and molested by a mahu. What happened to him?
(Don): I guess I found a measure of purpose to bring me out of my reserved sentiment. Not entirely, but more so than would have been had I not dealt with the circumstances and situations from and since that time. Sometimes, it just takes life experiences and time to change.
(J): I asked my fellow PoD writers here to submit questions to you. I think we’ve covered one of them but this one got me by surprise. I think we’ve talked in general terms about it but can you expound on how your view of the “war on terror” and the use of force, particularly in Iraq, may have changed? What about future conflicts? Lastly, how do you feel about Iraq now?
(Don): Well, I think when we left Iraq, we fucked up how we did it, not actually working to help them like we had when you and I were there. I foresee a lot of conflict coming our way in the coming years, largely because we weren’t paying attention, and still aren’t, to what it going on in the world. Syria is a great example of something we’re having to deal with now because we weren’t paying attention to it before. I think we didn’t really understand what the ‘war on terror’ would entail, as a nation at least, when we entered into it, and I think most Americans still don’t know what it means or how long it is going to last. Like a lot of people, I think force should be the last option. However, when we commit to using it we have to do so and use it to the fullest extent to meet our objectives. We haven’t done that so far and I don’t foresee us doing it anytime soon either. I foresee this conflict lasting another decade or two being conducted piss-poorly, and we won’t really know how it ends as a consequence of that. Additionally, because of the length I see I also foresee our kids having to fight it because we did not do what was necessary to finish it.
(J): I So what else would you like to say to everyone who may read this?
(Don): Remember those who served and who we lost. Remember the families who lost loved ones, and how those who lost are not ONLY limited to spouses, kids, and parents. There are more beyond this, we veterans, brothers and sisters in arms, included. Don’t be afraid to talk about those we lost, wherever you are in that community, veteran, family member, friend, or otherwise.
Thanks Don. As Veteran’s Day has passed and the date of November 16th looms large in my friend’s and his family’s life, I ask that you remember this story. Being a brother is more than just blood to some of us but for a few… it means so much more.
