Matt Bacik |
Matt Bacik
BRANCH OF SERVICE: United States Army
RANK: Captain
YEARS SERVED: 2002-2006
TIME SERVED IN IRAQ: Nine months
UNIT IN IRAQ: 82nd Airborne Division and
3rd Ranger Battalion
HOMETOWN: Chesterland, Ohio
HIGH SCHOOL: Gilmour Academy ‘98
Jim Asher
BRANCH OF SERVICE: United States Army
RANK: Captain
YEARS SERVED: 2002-2007
TIME SERVED IN IRAQ: 7 months
UNIT IN IRAQ: 82nd Airborne Division
HOMETOWN: Bay Village, Ohio
HIGH SCHOOL: Lutheran West High School
‘98
Jim Asher |
“You talk to older veterans about
how they stay friends with the guys they met in the military until they die, so
it is really cool. I’m just thankful I had that opportunity.”
Army
Captain Jim Asher just happened to be visiting his brother in Washington D.C.
late July, 2005 when he received a phone call from his good friend, fellow Army
officer Matt Bacik.
“They
got me again Jimmy,” Bacik said.
“Aww,
son of a bitch,” Asher responded. “What happened?”
Bacik
was not in Iraq, as Asher believed, but across town being treated for serious
injuries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Unexpectedly, the two were again
placed in the same geographical area in the latest in a long string of odd
coincidences that followed the two soldiers throughout their military careers.
For
Bacik, it was a military career that would soon end due to a massive IED blast
July 22. The explosion blew his boot off and mangled his foot and lower leg. In
an instant, Bacik was leaving Iraq, a place where he had spent a significant
amount of his military career, for good. He had no idea, when he phoned his
buddy Jim, that Asher was just minutes away from the hospital.
“(After
the phone call) I ran over to Walter Reed and Matt’s mom was there all shaken
up,” Asher recalled. “I surprised him when I showed up because he didn’t know I
was in the area.”
“I was
pretty out-of-it in the beginning but I know he made my family and I feel much
better when he showed up,” Bacik said. “My wife (then-fiancĂ©) Deborah and my
parents had all met him before so it was good for all of them to have a calming
voice in the room.”
Asher
and Bacik met in 2002 at Fort Benning, Ga. while both were beginning their
careers as United States Army officers. As recent college graduates (Bacik from
the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Asher from Cedarville University in
southern Ohio), the duo were attending Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC)
before proceeding on to Army Ranger School.
“The
first time I met him I thought, ‘Man, this guy is a punk,’” Bacik recalled
laughing. “He just had a real smug look on his face. We became friends though
and ended up having a lot of fun.”
In
conversation, the two young officers were shocked to realize they unknowingly
played football against each other in high school in 1997. Bacik, a native of
Chesterland, Ohio, attended Gilmour Academy and Asher, from Bay Village, went
to Lutheran West High School in Rocky River.
“We were
in the same squad at IOBC and started talking about high school football,”
Asher said. “We discovered we played in that same game and started recounting
different plays.”
After
completing Ranger School, both Asher and Bacik shipped to Fort Bragg, North
Carolina to become members of the historic 82nd Airborne Division. It was there
the friendship between the two Army lieutenants from northeast Ohio blossomed.
Along with Lieutenants John McNamara and Chris Carlson, Asher and Bacik formed
a group of four friends that made the most of their time in Fayetteville, North
Carolina. “Yeah, Jim and I had a lot of fun running around and drinking too
much while we were at Fort Bragg,” Bacik said laughing.
During
one training exercise, the two found themselves together in a trench while
another platoon was preparing to “attack” them. “We were basically playing
war,” Bacik recalled. “Jim and I were in this trench and it was November and so
freaking cold. This was the culminating exercise of a week-long training and we
just so sick of being out there so we just stood up and started shooting our
blanks from our M16s like you would see in the movies. The officer responsible
for making sure we were learning stuff got really pissed at us for that.”
Despite
that incident, Asher and Bacik were both sharp young officers with promising
Army careers ahead of them. When U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March, 2003, it
was only a matter of time before the lieutenants from Ohio, both platoon
leaders for infantry units, would be on their way to Iraq. By September, both
men had orders to put their extensive training to the test and join the fight
in the Middle East.
As
platoon leaders, Asher and Bacik were responsible for a large group of infantry
soldiers; some of them combat veterans with lengthy military careers. It was a
tall order for a young lieutenant less than two years removed from college.
“You
show up as a brand new lieutenant out of Ranger School and these guys have a
lot of real-world experience, but at the end of the day the Lt. is in charge,”
Bacik said. “It is very personality-driven as far as what the relationship
shakes out to be. You have to really lean on those guys and draw whatever you
can out of their experience and skill set.”
Asher
lead a platoon of about 45 soldiers and it was on him to make certain that unit
was ready to go into combat.
“The
enlisted guys were the experts on the different weapons systems, they were the
ones actually doing it,” he said. “I was focused on whether they were trained
to a certain standard.”
“The big
picture maneuvering-type stuff is what I was responsible for,” Asher explained.
“On a mission, the enlisted troops are the boots on the ground; I was just
directing traffic at that point.
Upon
arriving in Iraq, Bacik’s unit went to Fallujah in central Iraq; while Asher’s
squad moved on to relieve an undermanned Marines company in Mahmoudiya,
directly south of Baghdad. Before shipping out, the Marines ominously briefed
Asher’s unit on the “bad neighborhoods” in town, the ones they typically
steered clear of. The city’s location in relation to Baghdad made it a key
strategic position for both American troops and insurgents.
“That
was one of the things we wanted to change,” Asher said. “We were going to go
everywhere and a lot of those bad neighborhoods are where we made our first
contact once we got there.”
It took
just two days in Mahmoudiya for Asher to experience enemy gunfire for the first
time. He decided to tag along with another lieutenant and about eight other
soldiers to do a quick drive through of the city to try and get a feel for the
layout. As the sun began to set on the unfamiliar land, Asher expressed concern
and believed it was time to return to base but the other officer disagreed.
“He
wanted to push on, so we go into one of the ‘ghetto’ areas and next thing I
know I’m hearing AK-47s open up from one of the rooftops right above us,” he
recalled. “We were able to return fire and get out of there. We weren’t
outfitted to storm the building and clear it like we would have liked.”
Amazingly,
none of the American soldiers were hit that night. In another part of the
country, however, Matt Bacik would not be so lucky. Not long after arriving,
Bacik earned the first of the three Purple Hearts he would compile in Iraq; all
from IED explosions. “The first one was really nothing,” he said. “I just took
a piece of shrapnel to the face and was back out there a day later.”
A
roadside bomb October 20, 2003 near Fallujah was far more serious. Having lost
a good friend in the blast, the events of that day are forever seared into
Bacik’s memory. A large piece of shrapnel entered into the lieutenant’s body
from the rear and passed completely through his left thigh and embedded into
his right thigh. He ultimately recovered despite a massive loss of blood, but
none of that mattered once Bacik learned his good buddy and squad leader, Staff
Sergeant Paul J. Johnson of Calumet, Mich. did not survive the attack.
“I
really looked up to him, he was the best squad leader I ever had and the best
non-commissioned officer I ever met,” Bacik said. “Just about every day I
replay it in my brain, trying to think what could have been done differently. I
always come to the conclusion nothing could have been done so it doesn’t haunt
me, but I certainly think about it a lot.”
Bacik
was taken to the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad to recover. By
Thanksgiving he was up walking again and by mid-December had rejoined his unit
and taking part in missions. The next time Matt Bacik was wounded by an IED
blast would be his last.
In
January, 2004, filmmakers Garrett Scott and Ian Olds arrived in Iraq to begin
filming a documentary about U.S. troops in Fallujah. For a month, the crew
lived amongst the troops, performing several interviews and even accompanying
them on missions.
“At
first it was kind of cool, like ‘oh man they are gonna make a movie about us!’”
Bacik said. “But after about a day it was back to business. Reporters were
everywhere and I talked to a lot of them. Most of them had a view of what they
thought was going on and it seemed they were just trying to get information
from us to confirm it. I felt they were biased, sometimes towards us, but
usually against us and I was always skeptical. The film crew [for the
documentary] were the only ones who I felt were seriously just trying to
document what was going on without placing any spin on it.”
The
film, Occupation: Dreamland, was
released in September, 2005 and featured Matt in several scenes, including
interviews and scenes during missions. While being able to see himself in
action in Iraq is a unique situation, Bacik doesn’t spend much of his time
watching.
“I know
what we did over there and I don’t need anything but my brain to tell me.
Sometimes I wish it wasn’t out there because it is such a small snapshot of
everything that went on."
***
In the
early days in Iraq, American troops did not enjoy some of the luxuries that
arrived in subsequent years. There was no access to the internet and troops
would get 10 minutes a week on a satellite phone to keep touch back home. Meals
Ready to Eat, or MREs, were the only available food.
“We
didn’t have running showers for the first six months,” Asher added. “We just
had an elevated bucket so if the water sat all night, especially in the winter;
it was freezing cold when you turned it on.”
Asher
made sure to monitor his troops for physical and mental health. Like Bacik, he
relied heavily on his more experienced enlisted troops. “I had the best squad
leaders I could have ever asked for,” he said. “Anything we did that was a
success, I would give them 100 percent of the credit because they were the ones
out there executing.”
On
occasion, Asher would joke around with his troops to keep things light, knowing
everyone was under a degree of stress. “I enjoyed spending time with the
enlisted. The camaraderie is so strong and they weren’t worried about the
politics,” he said. “They really focused on training and execution; it made my
job easier.”
Asher
noticed a steady increase in violence the longer his unit was in Iraq. In the
early days they faced the occasional mortar attack or an IED consisting of a
mortar round buried along the road being ignited by an insurgent hiding behind
a berm. “By the time we left, there were IEDs all over, some consisting of
daisy-chained 155mm rounds being set off by cell phone a mile away.”
Relations
with the locals also deteriorated. Initially happy to have the American
liberators in their country, many eventually grew frustrated over living
conditions which made them less welcoming to U.S. troops.
“They
wanted to know about getting electricity back and getting schools up and
running,” Asher explained. “We were put in a role where we were acting as civil
affairs but our mission is combat; we are infantry paratroopers. That was very
challenging.”
Frustrations
also mounted for American troops as they did their best to help the civilians,
yet still faced constant attacks. “It kind of left a bitter taste in your
mouth.” As a platoon leader, Asher had to ignore his own frustrations and focus
on maintaining the morale of his enlisted corps.
“All of
them came in wanting to do a good job and help out and we had to let them know
nothing they did was pointless. They were going out there risking their lives
but there was a reason for it. As cliché as it sounds, it was all about taking
care of your buddy. The goal was to get everyone home. I told my guys all the
time, I wouldn’t trade one of them for a whole city.”
***
When
Matt Bacik shows hit two little daughters his prosthetic leg, he calls it his
“robot leg.” Occasionally he tells them stories about his time in service and
what daddy was doing overseas. What he hasn’t discussed with them is the hell
he went through after an enemy IED mangled the lower half of his leg.
“Initially
I just wanted them to cut the thing off,” he said. “But they wanted to try this
and try that.”
One
fateful explosion turned into an eight-month ordeal that Bacik will never
forget. The giant tears in his flesh became infected and he would spend time
receiving antibiotics intravenously. Doctors removed the drugs, but the
stubborn infection continuously returned. Several excruciating times, Bacik
headed back to the surgical table followed by more antibiotics. The process
continued to repeat itself until Bacik could hardly stand to take anymore.
“At the
eight-month mark, when a doctor told me they would amputate if I wanted, it was
the biggest relief ever,” he explained. “When I first got hit and my leg was
all chewed up I knew the foot was probably gone and had no qualms about it.
When I got to Walter Reed they told me I wasn’t a good candidate for amputation
because the skin on the leg was all cut up and it needed to heal first.”
As soon
as his leg was amputated just below the knee, Bacik began to make a dramatic
recovery. Within 30 days he was walking with the aid of the prosthetic and
after 60 days he was jogging. Before all that though, he had some unfinished
business to take care of.
Prior to his deployment, Matt Bacik took his
then-girlfriend Deborah to a jewelry store to pick out a ring. The plan was to
get engaged after he returned from Iraq. After Matt’s injury, everybody was
rightfully more concerned about his health than his relationship status, but
Bacik never forgot the ring. At his first opportunity and still in a wheelchair, Bacik returned to the Jeweler to pick up the ring. When the store manager, not expecting Bacik for a few months, recognized him, he was overcome with emotion at the sight of the wounded young man and tears began to stream from his eyes.
“He knew
I wasn’t supposed to be back for awhile and when I rolled in there all beat up,
I guess it hit him pretty hard,” Bacik recalled. With ring in hand, Matt and
Deborah, who he credits nursing him back to health, made wedding plans and were
married February, 2006.
The
injury to his leg not only changed dramatically, the direction of Matt Bacik’s
life, but also caused the parallel existence he shared with his buddy Jim to
veer off course. As Matt was going through the ordeal with his leg, Jim
remained stateside and was sent to New Orleans to assist with the aftermath of
the devastating hurricane Katrina. After serving in Louisiana, the Army sent
Asher back to Fort Benning to work at Airborne School and eventually Basic
Training.
After
completing his rehabilitation, Bacik was discharged from the Army and enrolled
at Auburn University in Auburn, Ala. and ultimately earned his Master of
Business Administration. In April, 2009, Matt started the Bacik Group; a highly
successful management consulting firm with branch offices in three different
states. He has remained involved with the military including doing work with
the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit organization that assists to meet the
various needs of severely injured service members.
Jim
Asher completed his commitment to the Army and left active duty in June, 2007.
He continued his life of service to his country, however, and is now a special
agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Asher and
Bacik remain close friends and talk on the phone about once a week. Bacik’s
kids love to hear from “Uncle Jim,” who also sends them gifts on their
birthdays and Christmas. Both men admit Iraq still comes up quite often as they
continue to assist each other with the transition back to civilian life.
“I get
more scared now thinking about some of the situations than I was at the time,
“Asher said. “The mind is pretty remarkable. There must be defense mechanisms
or something, because I didn’t feel scared. I was just doing my job and almost
numb to the fear.”
“Coming
home was quite an adjustment,” he added. “In a span of 48 hours, I went from
combat infantryman to meeting my family at the airport and going out for a
steak dinner, meanwhile, on the way I’m worried that an orange barrel on the
side of the road was going to blow up.”
Like
Asher, Bacik has no regrets from his service and time in Iraq.
“It
takes some time to figure out what things you can take with you from the
experience and what things you need to just let go,” he said. “Obviously I
learned a lot from it and it definitely took a while to realize I wasn’t
hunting anyone and nobody was hunting me. But I am never sorry I was over there
and never sorry I got hurt.”