The price of war
‘Was it worth it?’ The story of fallen 19-year-old Marine and a 20-year conflict’s bloody end
SPRINGVILLE, Tenn. — Gretchen Catherwood remembers the worst moment of her life: Three Marines and a Navy chaplain were walking toward her front door, and that could only mean one thing.
Her 19-year-old son, Marine Lance Cpl. Alec Catherwood, was dead. He was killed fighting the Taliban on Oct. 14, 2010.
As she watched the news over the last two weeks, it felt like that day happened 10 minutes ago. The American military pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban took over, and in an instant all the battles fought and sacrifices made seemed to be for nothing.
Gretchen Catherwood’s phone buzzed with messages: from the officer who’d delivered the news of her son’s death; the parents of others killed in battle or by suicide since; her son’s fellow fighters in the storied 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, nicknamed the Darkhorse Battalion, that endured the highest rate of causalities in Afghanistan.
Friends told her how horrible they’d felt that her son had died in vain.
As she exchanged messages with the others who’d paid the price of war, she worried its end was forcing them to question whether all they had suffered had mattered.
“There are three things I need you to know,” she said to some. “You did not fight for nothing. Alec did not lose his life for nothing. I will be here for you no matter what, until the day I die.”
‘Welcome to Sangin’
In the woods behind her Tennessee house, the Darkhorse Lodge is under construction.
She and her husband are building a retreat for combat veterans, a place where they can gather and grapple together with the horrors of war. There are 25 rooms, each named after one of the men killed from her son’s battalion. The ones who made it home have become their surrogate sons, she said. And she knows of more than a half-dozen who have died from suicide.
“I am fearful of what this might do to them psychologically. They’re so strong and so brave and so courageous. But they also have really, really big hearts. And I feel that they might internalize a lot and blame themselves,” she said. “And oh God, I hope they don’t blame themselves.”
The 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment deployed in the fall of 2010 from Camp Pendleton, California, sending 1,000 U.S. Marines on what would become one of the bloodiest tours for American service members in Afghanistan.
The Darkhorse Battalion spent six months battling Taliban fighters in the Sangin district of Helmand province. An area of green fields and mud compounds, Sangin remained almost entirely in the Taliban’s control nearly a decade into the U.S.-led war.
Fields of lush poppies used in narcotics gave the militants valued income they were determined to hold.
When the Marines arrived, white Taliban flags flew from most buildings. Loudspeakers installed to broadcast prayers were used to taunt U.S. forces. Schools had closed.
The Marines came under fire as soon as a helicopter dropped them outside their patrol base.
“When the bird landed, we were already getting shot at,” recalled former Sgt. George Barba, of Menifee, California. “We run, we get inside and I remember our gunnery sergeant telling us: ‘Welcome to Sangin. You just got your combat action ribbon.’ ”
Snipers lurked in the trees. Fighters armed with rifles hid behind mud walls. Homemade bombs turned roads and canals into deathtraps.
Sangin was Alec Catherwood’s first combat deployment.
He had enlisted in the Marines while still in high school, went to boot camp shortly after graduation, then was assigned to a 13-man squad led by former Sgt. Sean Johnson.
Johnson was impressed by Catherwood’s professionalism — physically fit, mentally tough and always on time.
“He was only 19, so that was extra special,” Johnson said. “Some are still just trying to figure out how to tie their boots and not get yelled at.”
Catherwood also made them laugh.
He carried around a small, stuffed animal he used as a prop for jokes.
Barba recalled Catherwood’s first helicopter ride during training, and how he was “smiling ear-to-ear and he’s swinging his feet like he’s a little kid on a highchair.” Former Cpl. William Sutton, of Yorkville, Illinois, swore Catherwood would crack jokes even during a firefight.
“Alec, he was a shining light in that darkness,” said Sutton, who was shot multiple times fighting in Afghanistan. “And then they took it from us.”
‘Your nightmares are back’
On Oct. 14, 2010, Catherwood’s squad came under fire from ambushing Taliban fighters, and then came a deafening explosion. One of the Marines had stepped on a hidden bomb.
Another explosion followed.
Looking to his left, Johnson saw Catherwood floating facedown. It was obvious, he said, that the young Marine was dead.
The Darkhorse Battalion returned to California in April 2011. After months of intense fighting, they’d largely seized Sangin from the Taliban’s grip.
It came at a heavy price. In addition to the 25 who died, more than 200 returned home wounded, many with lost limbs, others with scars harder to see.
Back in the United States, Staff Sgt. Steve Bancroft began an excruciating two-hour drive toward Catherwood’s parents’ house in northern Illinois. He’d served seven months in Iraq before he became a casualty assistance officer, tasked with notifying families of a death on the battlefield.
“I’d never wish that on anybody, I can’t express that enough: I do not wish looking a mom and dad in
the face and telling them their only son is gone,” said Bancroft, who is now retired.
He was stoic when he had to be, as he escorted families to Dover, Delaware, to watch coffins be rolled out of a plane.
But when he was alone, he cried. And he still weeps when he thinks about the moment he arrived at the home of Gretchen and Kirk Catherwood.
“Their son was such a hero, it’s hard to explain, but he sacrificed more than 99% of the people in this world would ever think of doing,” he said.
“Was it worth it? We lost so many people. It’s hard to think about how many we’ve lost.” he said.
When the Taliban swept back into control of Afghanistan just before the fifth anniversary of her son’s death, she felt relief that a war that left more than 2,400 Americans dead and more than 20,700 wounded had finally come to an end.
But there was also sadness that gains made by the Afghan people — especially women and children — may be temporary.
“As a mom, this kind of stabs you, because would he still be around, would any of these young men still be around if this whole war hadn’t happened?” she said. “But I try to gently correct people when they say this was a waste or this was all for nothing. Because that’s not true. We don’t know what impacts it’s had on the safety of our country, on the safety of the Afghan people.”
Some who served with the Darkhorse Battalion are having a hard time seeing it any way other than that their efforts, their blood and the lives of their fallen friends were all for nothing.
“I’m starting to feel like how the Vietnam vets felt. There was no purpose to it whatsoever,” said Sutton, 32, who now works in the veterans services office of a county outside Chicago,
helping military vets get care.
“We were able to hold our head up high and say we went to the last Taliban stronghold and we gave them hell,” Sutton said, “only for it all to be taken away. In the blink of an eye.”
Barba, 34, works as a private security guard near Los Angeles.
He and his wife are expecting their first child. He said he’s had trouble sorting his feelings about the bleak news from Afghanistan. His wife recently woke to Barba screaming in his sleep. “I think your nightmares are back,” she told him.
“It really is weird,” Barba said. “I’ve seen my guys get mad. I’ve seen my guys get frustrated. But not like this. This is like somebody spit in their face.”
Johnson, 34, works as a commercial diver in Florida.
He said the U.S. should have acknowledged years ago that the Afghan security forces Americans trained and equipped would never be able to defend the country on their own.
“My personal opinion, yeah, we probably should have pulled out years and years ago,” Johnson said.
Slim hopes and huge fears
A few months ago, Gretchen Catherwood was painting the cabins that will become the Darkhorse Lodge.
It was dark, still without electricity and no cell service, so it was quiet. She felt suddenly like she could feel her son and his 24 fallen comrades. She could almost see their faces.
“It’s a place where I can feel like they’re together,” she said, “and that they are still caring for their brothers.”
The Catherwoods moved out of their home in Illinois.
Every time she walked to the front door, Gretchen remembered those four men arriving with the news. She couldn’t bear it anymore.
She’d always disliked tattoos and hassled her son when he got one as a Marine.
But then she found herself at a tattoo parlor. She had his name inked on her arm, and the shape of a gold star pin put permanently on her chest, just above her heart, so she’d never take it off again.
She could no longer care for her son, she said, but she could for those who made it home. She and her husband moved to the woods in Tennessee and got to work on the Darkhorse Lodge.
They fashioned their logo after the battalion’s mascot, a fierce-looking horse, facing left, its mane sharp like a serrated knife and its eyes squinted for battle. The artist who drew theirs softened its edges and turned it to the right, facing toward a future after war.
They raised $1 million, mostly in small donations.
One woman sends a check for $2 every month. Bancroft, the officer who notified her of her son’s death, donates every year. The obituary for one soldier who died by suicide asked for donations to the Darkhorse Lodge in his memory, and checks flooded the Catherwoods’ mailbox.
They hope to open next summer and offer free stays for any combat veteran from any war or branch of the military who might benefit from time in the woods, where the only conflict is among the dozens of hummingbirds fighting over the feeders on her front porch.
She is hopeful that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan means no one else will die on a battlefield there.
But she also worries that it might rattle the veterans who made it home, and who might already be struggling to make sense of what happened there and why.
“That’s a constant fear, it’s been my fear since they got back but now it’s even worse,” she said. “They experienced things that 99% of the country never will. I’ve never watched a friend die. I’ve never fought to the death. We are losing these people at a frightening rate to suicides, and we can’t afford to lose one more.”
She and her husband don’t believe that the chaotic end honors their son’s service, and are particularly troubled that some of the Afghan interpreters and others who helped the military for years might not make it out alive.
But they also can’t imagine how it might have ended any other way, had the United States stayed in Afghanistan another year or five or 20.