(The Nashville Tennessean posted the following article by Kelli Samantha Hewett on its website on May 25. Brother Scott A. Barkalow is a member of BLE Division 41 in Nashville.)
NASHVILLE — In his ordinary life, Scott Barkalow is a CSX train engineer, husband, father. In his not-so-ordinary life, there are secret missions, unconventional warfare and counterterrorism.
Sgt. First Class Barkalow’s work with the Army National Guard’s 20th Special Forces Group took him to Afghanistan on the hunt for the Muslim extremists of al-Qaida and the Taliban. On a snowy February morning along the Pakistani border, Barkalow would cheat death but pay a personal price. Later, he would insist the cause of freedom was worth a piece of him maybe more.
”I believed in it, and I still believe in it,” said Barkalow, 40, from his room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. ”It’s sad I lost a leg, but I understand. I accepted it right then.”
Barkalow’s is the story of a hero after the headlines, after the sacrifices when a soldier prepares to come home and piece together a post-war kind of normal.
Deciding to be different
To understand Scott Barkalow, you first have to understand the kind of soldier he has chosen to be.
Barkalow, of Lyles, Tenn., who is a member of a Decatur, Ala.-based Guard unit, was part of a self-contained team of 12 sent into Afghanistan in September 2002. The group was assigned to do reconnaissance work, guerrilla warfare and other high-risk operations. They often enlist and train local guerilla soldiers to help carry out their unconventional missions.
”They are a different breed,” said Elizabeth Barkalow, Scott’s wife of three years. ”He is all-guy guy.”
When he wasn’t working, the Mt. Juliet native was working his land, practicing judo or jumping out of planes. He carries a strong faith in God and has the values his wife says make him an inspiring father and husband.
Because Scott Barkalow’s work was so sensitive, she and their children his son, A.J., 8, and her daughter, Briana, 9 didn’t know exactly where he was or what he was doing on his last military assignment.
On Feb. 19, that changed.
It was just after her nursing shift at Meharry General Hospital. She saw a message on her cell phone but didn’t stop to listen to it before making the hourlong drive home. She pulled into the driveway and checked. It was Scott’s brother. Something was wrong.
When family members broke the news, ”I lost it; I started crying,” Elizabeth Barkalow said.
Barkalow’s truck had run over a land mine, and his right leg was blown off. The details would come later, from Scott and his best friend, Dan Smith of Dickson, who had been leading the Special Forces team. Barkalow remembers the facts. Smith remembers the story.
Smith said 6 inches of new snow had fallen the morning of the accident. The group, which included some Afghan militia members, was patrolling a well-searched area. They came upon a section of road that hadn’t seen traffic since the snowfall. Anticipating trouble, Smith veered his truck, so did the next truck.
”Then I heard a massive explosion,” Smith said. ”In the mirror I could see (Scott’s) truck going in the air about 8 feet. I figured out it was a land mine.”
Smith jumped out and ran toward his friend and the other team member who had been driving.
”The whole front of the truck was gone,” Smith said. ”When I got to the vehicle, Scott was blown back in the seat. His body armor was busted open, his face was blackened.”
Smith yelled for a medic and a chopper because Scott had problems with his lower leg, his arms, his face and his eye.
”I could tell his leg was gone, and I could see into his sinus cavity,” Smith said. ”He never cried; he never whined.”
Scott asked his friend to say a prayer with him, and he did. Smith says there is no reason to tell the details. ”He should have been dead,” Smith said. ”God’s hand protected him.”
They waited for the medical evacuation, but Smith stayed busy.
”I got all his spare parts on the plane,” Smith said. ”I wouldn’t leave a bit of him in The ‘Ghan. I carried his foot around in my pocket for about an hour.”
But they couldn’t save Barkalow’s leg, which was amputated below the knee. He was treated nearby then flown to Germany, and transported to Washington a few days later. Scott’s parents, Bruce and Ann Barkalow, and his wife had been waiting for several days.
Financial burden, sacrifices
While the military paid for Barkalow’s care, expenses to visit him were mostly on the shoulders of the family.
”I couldn’t wait to get my hands on him and take care of him,” said Elizabeth Barkalow, who took off six unpaid weeks from work. ”I had to go from wife mode to nurse mode and combine the two.”
Scott Barkalow has had more than a dozen surgeries, then had infections that slowed his progress. Elizabeth Barkalow left to return to work. There were bills to pay.
”It was hard,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.
Reality set in quickly. Bills continued to come in. There were long-distance phone calls and plane fares to take the children for a visit. There are also unanswered questions about the long-term effects of Scott Barkalow’s wounds and his possible limitations.
”My husband has a combat injury,” Elizabeth Barkalow said. ”I’m living what other people have lived before.”
Scott Barkalow is aware of his wife’s sacrifices, as well.
”I know she cried her eyes out, but when everything was falling down around her, she stood up and accepted it for what it was,” he said. He compares her strength to Jackie Kennedy’s.
”It’s not one leg we are thinking about missing,” Elizabeth Barkalow said. ”We are glad the whole person is here.”
Smith’s wife, Sharon, saw the immediate problems of the situation right away things most people never consider when they read or hear about wounded soldiers: extra money, lost time from work, extra child care. She and her husband wanted to help.
”It’s just something that just needed to be done,” she said.
Sharon Smith began writing to the local papers and set up an information table in their gym. Help began pouring in, from local veterans, neighbors, other Special Forces members and strangers.
The local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars held a dance and bake sale earlier this month. And an area artist who never met Scott Barkalow has created a patriotic sketch in his honor. All sales of the $10 prints go directly to the Barkalow family.
”I’ve been in the military. I’ve seen people that have been injured,” said Willie Tyson, a welding supervisor for Shiloh Industries in Dickson who got his D.C.-based brother to visit Barkalow at Walter Reed.
”If I can pay one bill for them, that’s going to ease the stress.”
The major costs include converting Barkalow’s truck, catching up on bills, phone expenses and travel costs. Those are costs the military doesn’t routinely cover.
The Smiths are overwhelmed by the response, especially from nearby communities. ”This is rural America and the South,” Smith said. ”People care here.”
A source of inspiration to all
Scott Barkalow has inspired people outside the South, as well. At the Washington hospital, he has played host to many famous visitors, including President and Laura Bush, Michael Jordan, singer Sheryl Crow, actor Kelsey Grammer, and actress Jennifer Love Hewitt. While he appreciated meeting them, it’s the cards and letters from home that touched him.
”It’s meant so much to hear from my community, from my state,” Scott Barkalow said.
Elizabeth Barkalow and the children plan to leave for Washington tomorrow. It will be her fourth trip to see her husband. She wants to stay there for his physical rehabilitation to avoid the long drives from Lyles. He hopes to be home within a month or so.
There is enough to think about without contemplating the future of his work, adjustments to home and the next chapter of their lives.
Scott Barkalow says he has no regrets and would go back if he could. He said he isn’t bitter about his loss.
”It’s a belief in God, knowing and trusting in him,” the soldier said. ”That’s the way it is. You might as well accept it.”
He also believes in the war this country is fighting, he said.
The Smiths hope their friend has time for an adjustment period, but they realize finances may force him to work quickly. They hope people continue to be emotionally supportive to Barkalow and remember his sacrifice.
”The word ‘hero’ is used loosely in this country,” Dan Smith said. ”In Scott’s case, it’s true.”
Scott Barkalow disagrees.
”I definitely don’t feel that I was,” Scott Barkalow said, not even saying it aloud. ”I was somebody that got injured. That’s the one thing that’s overwhelming and hard to take, that particular definition and that word. I was just doing what I have always been doing. My job. That was it. I’ve always believed in my country.”
How to help
Send checks or personal letters to:
Scott Barkalow, P.O. Box 334, Dickson, Tenn. 37056