Soldier's Words Have Some Questioning War in Afghanistan

Dead Soldier's Words Have Some Questioning War in Afghanistan
Matthew Sitton, who once attended Southeastern University, wrote to Rep. Bill Young
By John Woodrow Cox
Tampa Bay Times
Published: Sunday, September 30, 2012

The sun had just crept above the tree line over the Arghandab Valley in Afghanistan when Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Sitton reached the far side of the dirt road.

The sun had just crept above the tree line over the Arghandab Valley in Afghanistan when Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Sitton reached the far side of the dirt road.

The day before, engineers had been clearing a path when one of them stepped on a buried explosive. One had died, four others had been injured. Staff Sgt. Michael Herne and his men had guarded the scene overnight.

At 6 a.m. the next day, Aug. 2, Sitton took over.

"All right," Herne told his platoon mate, "I'm going to sleep."

Sitton, who almost always wore a smile across his freckled face, stopped him. He looked serious. He gripped Herne's hand and squeezed. Herne promised to be back in six hours, then left.

He had just returned to their outpost, about 1,000 feet away, when the air cracked and the earth shivered. A cloud of dust the size of a football field ballooned over the horizon.

Sitton and another sergeant had tripped an explosive. A big one. Both died instantly.

On June 4, Sitton had written a letter to U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young. In it, he explained to the Republican legislator that for weeks his platoon had been mandated to patrol empty fields and compounds strewn with explosives. The missions, he wrote, served no purpose. Soldiers were losing arms and legs every day. He had objected, but no one had listened.

Someone would die, he wrote, if nothing changed.
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