By STEPHEN THOMAS
Air Force Master Sgt. Robert Bartleson earned the duty of choosing airmen to serve on his special operations team. One of his assignments was with the 24th Special Tactics Squadron out of Pope Field, N.C.
He saw something special there in combat controller Staff Sgt. Andrew W. Harvell and two pararescuemen, Tech Sgt. Daniel L. Zerbe and Tech Sgt. John W. Brown.
“I was there for eight years,” Bartleson said. “Those three guys were on my team. I actually selected each one of them to come to my team.”
They are all gone. Harvell, Zerbe and Brown were among 30 U.S. troops who died Aug. 6 when, according to a U.S. Central Command report, suspected Taliban fighters shot down their CH-47D helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade in Wardak Province, Afghanistan.
Bartleson will be a member of relay teams of special tactics personnel who will march 812 miles from San Antonio through Harris County, Dayton and Liberty en route to Hurlburt Field, Fla., where the master sergeant currently serves with the Special Tactics Training Squadron.
The walk is known as the Tim Davis Memorial March, the namesake of Air Force Staff Sgt. Timothy P. Davis, a special tactics airman who died in 2009 in Afghanistan from injuries he sustained when his vehicle came upon an improvised explosive device.
Marchers were scheduled to get underway at 9 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 16; arrive in Atascocita at 10 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18; reach Dayton at 5 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19, and make it to Liberty at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, ideally in time to march in the Trinity Valley Exposition Fair and Rodeo Opening Day Parade through downtown Liberty. This was a tentative pre-march schedule, subject to change.
Since October 2009, the march, which also has been referred to as the “special ops walk,” was scheduled to occur following every fiscal year in which special forces personnel made the supreme sacrifice. Alas, the 2011 march marks three consecutive annual marches, each aimed at honoring fallen comrades and raising donations for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
The latter has been a means by which generosity has allowed the special operations community to forever take care of its own.
The foundation, according to its mission statement, “provides full scholarship grants and educational and family counseling to the surviving children of special operations personnel who die in operational or training missions and immediate financial assistance to severely wounded special operations personnel and their families.”
This will be Bartleson’s first Tim Davis Memorial March. Starting with the first five miles from San Antonio and continuing on each of his 12-mile stretches, Bartleson will carry memories of his special operations brothers along the route — and thereafter.
Brown’s record made him an obvious selection for special operations.“It’s almost like a draft, like the NFL,” Bartleson said. “He was just way ahead of his peers. He was the number-one guy. He was that strong — incredible guy.”Harvell was the type of person that virtually anyone would want to befriend.“He put a smile on everybody’s face,” Bartleson said. “He was the guy that had no enemies. Everyone seemed to like him. You would be hard-pressed to find a person that didn’t like that guy.”Zerbe would do whatever he could to help.“He has done so many great things,” Bartleson said. “He was that guy who always had a smile on his face. We would be on a team trip, no matter what. He liked to live for you; he would put you at ease.”
Marchers look forward to speaking with people in one community after another, educating residents about the role of special operations and reminding people of the enormity of military sacrifice as the nation remains at war.
“There are six three-men teams going out there, doing this,” said Air Force Maj. Kristi Beckman, a public affairs officer assigned to Air Force Special Operations Command, alluding to the memory of the honored dead. “It is a way to get out there and remember them and talk to the communities along the way.
“The start of this march is at Lackland Air Force Base, which is the start of the pipeline training for special tactics airmen. The end of it is at Hurlburt Field, Fla., which is where these airmen come to Air Force Special Operations Command for training to become special operators. It is really significant where they start and where they end.”
Retired Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Steve Haggett — who served in special operations for 20 years, marched last year and has served this year as the event’s team lead — hopes the march also will benefit the foundation’s cause.
“We are trying to raise $150,000 this year as we march through the five states,” Haggett said. “All monies collected during the 10-day march will be given to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization headquartered out of Tampa, Fla.”
The organization’s founders decided, Haggett said, “that it was time to take care of the children of our fallen warriors in the special operations community. That encompasses all of the services — the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Army, all those folks that are under special operations.”
The foundation pays the tuition for the children of special operations personnel who die in the performance of their duties. Their children may attend any college or university to which they are accepted.
Thirty of the 90 young adults helped by the foundation have been pursuing their degrees, Haggett said, adding, “It is a phenomenal thing to give to somebody, to tell somebody, ‘Listen, you do not have to pay for your education. We are going to take care of that for you.’ That pays dividends for the rest of their lives.”
The tuition payment is above and beyond other forms of aid.
“Obviously, you get the GI Bill,” Haggett said. “Each member is qualified, and you can now pass that on to your spouses. Then, we have the death benefits, which the family receives, but special ops takes it to the next height. We take care of the children. We don’t want them to be forgotten.”
The children and their families also are invited to special forces gatherings, such as holiday get-togethers. This gesture and the educational assistance reflect the inexorable bond, Haggett said.
The foundation accepts donations at either its own website, www.specialops.org, or that of the march, www.specialopswalk.com.
The latter website has a link to the tentative visitation schedule. Site visitors may determine when marchers will pass through. They may present a check to the cause personally.
“If we travel through, people can go onto that website that has our routes on there,” Haggett said. “If they come out and they want to give a check, I will be collecting those. If they do want to give me a check, they have to make it out to the ‘Special Operations Warrior Foundation,’ and 100 percent of that money goes to the children.”
Special operations personnel are as dedicated to the cause as they hope the community at large will be. Bartleson and his wife exemplified such devotion during a recent trip to an animal control office in regard to spaying the couple’s dog.“I was walking out the door, and this lady hands me a note,” Bartleson said. “I walk out and I read it — my wife was there — and it says, ‘Thank you for what you do for your country. Take your wife to lunch.’ There was $25 in there. I was floored by it.”The Bartlesons gave the gift to the foundation.
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