For Love of Country
What our veterans can teach us about citizenship, heroism, and sacrifice
by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
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, Petry’s 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.
Finally, Petry gave up on sleep, rolled out of his bunk, and stumbled into his platoon’s 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.
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 hadn’t 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 leader — their 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.
“I’m 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.
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 Robinson’s 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.
“Damn,” Petry muttered to himself. So much for my grenade.
He turned to check on Robinson and Higgins. As he did, he saw an object land on the dirt a few feet from his comrades.
Another grenade, the size of a baseball, the color of an olive, with the texture of a pineapple, packing enough TNT to kill his buddies.
The others hadn’t seen it. He knew that grenades typically have a four-and-a-half-second fuse. Even if he screamed out a warning, they wouldn’t have time to move away. Both of them would die. So he lunged.
In the fraction of a second between observing the grenade and reaching for it, Petry, a father of four, expected to surrender his life.
“These are my brothers — family just like my wife and kids — and you protect the ones you love.”
He grabbed the grenade with his right hand, lowered his head, and started to toss it away. As he let go, it exploded. The force of the blast propelled him backward and slammed him to the ground. He opened his eyes. I guess I’m still alive.
Then he caught sight of his right hand — or the place it had been. It appeared to have been cut off with a circular saw. He could see his radius and ulna, and a mass of flesh around his wrist. But no gushing blood.
He felt no pain.
He reached down with his left hand, grabbed a tourniquet — all soldiers carried them — and cinched it around his right forearm. Then he looked over at Robinson and Higgins. They were staring in disbelief.
“Keep pulling security,” Petry admonished. He wanted them scanning for insurgents, not looking at him.
At the sound of the explosion, the platoon’s first sergeant ran into the compound. When he saw that Petry’s hand was missing, he sought to pull the injured man to safety with a strap stitched to the back of his armored vest. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
“You’re not taking me anywhere,” Petry growled, “until we get those bastards.”
It would take a few more hours and several dozen rounds of ammunition, but the Rangers eventually killed all three insurgents. As the fighting dragged on, Petry hobbled over to the team’s injury collection point.
“I need to take a look at you,” the medic said. “Start with the other guys,” Petry replied. “I’m fine.” “No, you’re not,” he said, pointing to Petry’s legs. Petry looked down. His camouflage pants and boots were soaked in blood.
I want to keep fighting, but I guess my body is running out of juice.
As he was carried to a medical evacuation helicopter, Higgins hustled over to his side. He looked Petry in the eyes.
“You saved us, man.”
Nearly five years later, in February 2013, I met Leroy Petry in a packed auditorium on the ninth floor of Starbucks’ headquarters in Seattle. He was dressed in his Class A uniform, his left breast covered with multicolored ribbon bars, his arms decorated with gold chevrons identifying him as a sergeant first class. It was an Army uniform similar to those worn by so many other Americans who have served on multiple combat deployments — with one key difference: a five-pointed gold star hung from a light blue ribbon around his neck.
It was the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest award for combat valor.
The Starbucks Armed Forces Network, a group of our employees who have served in the military, had invited Petry to speak to us. As he shared his story, I found myself transfixed and humbled. Tears welled in my eyes. Here was a man brave enough to assume the ultimate risk so that others could live, and yet he spoke of himself only grudgingly, with the utmost modesty. He wanted the spotlight to fall on his brothers and sisters in uniform. “To be singled out is humbling,” he told us. “But I consider every service member to be our heroes.”
Petry’s act that day in May 2008 might have been unique, but the values, courage, and dedication he embodies are universal among those Americans who have raised their right hand and sworn to defend our nation. We thank them for their service. We applaud them at sporting events. But how much do we really know about who our veterans are, what they did overseas, and what they’re doing now? In many homes, unlike in previous generations, these stories aren’t shared across the dinner table.
Saying “thank you” at an airport is not enough. Standing for an ovation at a baseball game is not enough.
Less than 1 percent of our population have served our military abroad since the September 11, 2001, attacks. Add their direct family members, and they still amount to less than 5 percent of the nation. Most Americans have no skin in the game.
A major reason is the way our countrymen have come to wear the uniform. With no draft, we rely on brave volunteers. It is a system that has provided us with the best-trained, most-disciplined military in the world, and even during the most difficult periods of the Iraq war, there was never a shortage of young men and women who were willing to join. The reliance on volunteers has led many other Americans to pay scant attention to the sacrifice of our warriors. We let them protect us, yet we go on with life as usual. Political leaders have encouraged us to do so, as have the media.
Most of these veterans are now home, so why bother? In fact, our engagement is more important than ever. They don’t need care packages and quilts. They need a nation to understand the skills and values and discipline they have acquired — and the assistance they still require — and then give them an opportunity to make a difference on the home front.
They need to return to a nation that feels connected to them.
We hope this book will motivate Americans on both sides — our veterans and active-duty service members, and those who haven’t served and don’t possess a direct family tie to a veteran — to collaborate in communities across our country to close this gap. Saying “thank you” at an airport is not enough. Standing for an ovation at a baseball game is not enough. To do right by our veterans — to recognize their value to our society and fulfill our solemn obligation to those who volunteered to protect the rest of us — we first have to understand what they have accomplished and what they offer our nation.
Adapted from For Love of Country by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Copyright © 2014 by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A Knopf. All Rights Reserved.
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