640 GIs of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment Re-Enlist

Fort Carson soldiers re-enlist
The mass re-enlistment of 640 GIs of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment is considered invaluable to the Army’s future.
Fort Carson – A year ago, as Iraqi fighters detonated a bomb that shattered his convoy, Army Sgt. Gene Braxton led survivors scrambling out of their Humvees in the hot dusty haze to hunt for the triggermen.



Five months later, a bigger roadside bomb rocked the armored vehicle Braxton was in. Reeling from a concussion, he dragged a wounded buddy to safety.
Back in Colorado, Braxton has re-enlisted and will undergo parachute jump training in preparation for a possible third stint of combat duty in Iraq.
The 26-year-old is among 640 Colorado-based 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment soldiers who, in an unusually large mass re-enlistment, have extended their military service. Hundreds participated in a re-enlistment ceremony Friday, standing bolt straight on the shiny wood floor in a Fort Carson gym, raising their right hands and swearing they’d do anything to support and defend the United States.
“Out of the Army? I’d never consider that,” said Braxton, who hopes his new jump training with the 82nd Airborne Division in Georgia will allow him to visit his daughter Jada, who lives with his ex-wife in Georgia.

For hundreds to re-enlist shows serious professionalism, said John Pike, director of the think tank Global Security. “It reflects well on the chain of command that people want to stick with it.”

At Army headquarters, Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, who monitors retention efforts, said “640 out of 5,000 soldiers is huge.”

The 3rd ACR commander, Col. H.R. McMaster, said “less tangible” factors such as knowing fellow soldiers “would die for you” drive re-enlistment. “Because of their combat experience,” he said, “these soldiers will be invaluable to our Army in the future.”
Not that soldiers decide easily.
“It’s not like I want to go back. But I enjoy what I do and the people I work with. You find work you enjoy, you stay with it,” said Staff Sgt. Dennis Busse, 29, who also served in Afghanistan with a wife and three kids back home.
“Money was the least of it” in deciding to stay with the 3rd ACR, which moves to Texas this year, said Busse, who worked previously as a cook at Italian and Mexican restaurants in his native Wisconsin.

“You’re always going to find difficulties. There are difficulties on the civilian side, too. The military seems to be closer. The difference is, the employers in the civilian world, some of the owners, they don’t want to do what they need to do. Here, anyone who’s above you has been where you are.”

A friend’s death
For Sgt. Heath Gadberry, re-upping was the last thing on his mind a year ago in Iraq. He remembers his 29th birthday there, when he was thinking: “What am I doing out here?”
A field medic, Gadberry had a college degree in outdoor recreation, was working online for a masters in health care administration, with a wife and three kids back home in Colorado.

“I was like: ‘What am I doing this for?’ ”

Then the next day, rolling through an insurgent hotbed south of Baghdad, a roadside bomb in an empty vehicle exploded as he passed, and everything went black. The blast killed his buddy, Spec. Robert Swaney, the gunner atop his Humvee.
It blew Gadberry 100 yards and with such force that the pavement he traveled over tore through his armor.
Once he was stitched and bandaged at base camp, Gadberry walked up to superiors and told them he wanted to re-enlist.

“Everybody looked at me like I was insane – ‘Of all people, you should know better,’ ” Gadberry said.

But Swaney’s death “motivated me,” he said. “How can I not do this? How could I pawn this off to somebody else?

“I’ve got other options. But I can’t imagine doing anything else right now. I’ve got to help get the job done.”