Jason Droddy and his twin brother, Kevin, entered the Army on March 18, 2009. They served six years with 3rd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment; deployed six times; and executed more than 150 missions each. Jason got out as a sergeant. His real estate company, the Droddy Group, helps veterans buy and sell their homes.
I’m okay with dying. You have to be okay with it, consciously or subconsciously, to be good at this job. If I’m not okay with it, I’ll hesitate, and I will get killed. There are no second chances.
My Ranger missions involve looking for and capturing certain high-value Iraqi targets. We go out mainly at night. It’s a lot of kicking in doors and rushing into rooms, not knowing who—or what—we’ll encounter. Each time it’s a mystery. I get into a lot of firefights, some of which are pretty intense.
My twin brother, Kevin, who is also a Ranger, is in a different part of the country, doing the exact same thing I’m doing. This is the first time we’ve ever spent any extended time apart.
When I’m having a weak moment, tired, anything like that, I think of Kevin. Back at basic training and during Ranger school, we never showed weakness because we wanted to be strong for each other, always. I have to be strong and focused so I can return home to my family.
And there’s no question in my mind that Kevin and I are coming home together.
One night I’m given a mission brief about a high-value target hiding inside a compound. Our guys have been watching this compound all day long, and certain individuals who appear to be guarding the compound walk back and forth from the perimeter to a wood line that is basically facing the compound. From comm chatter, we find out there’s a heavy World War II–era Russian machine gun sitting somewhere in the wood line.
“Protect the machine gun,” we hear these guys say. “Don’t let it get wet. Make sure someone is watching it at all times.”
That night we do a landing within three hundred meters of the compound. I run off the back of the helicopter. The rotor wash is intense, and the brownout is bad; I can’t see anything, and it’s loud, chaotic.
The bad guys don’t know we’re here. They’re staying low in the poppy field as we creep toward them. I see one guy hustling away from the compound to the wood line, and because of all the radio chatter I know he’s going for the big machine gun. I can’t let him get to it. I need to protect the force at all cost. Now.
I fire with my squad automatic weapon (SAW), a machine gun that fires long six-to-nine-round bursts, and end up trading shots with the bad guys. It’s the first time I initiate combat.
The guys I’m with—we’re tough, trying to be manly men and acting like we’re not scared or worried, but they know how close I am with my brother. Anytime the leadership finds out Kevin is in contact with the enemy, they always invite me up to the Joint Operations Center (JOC) to watch the intelligence surveillance reconnaissance (ISR) feed from the drones so I can keep an eye on what’s going on, watch what’s happening. It’s tough to watch Kevin in a fight but there’s also a relief in being able to see him and know he’s okay.
We start doing some remain over day (ROD) missions, where we infiltrate one night and then move to the target compound and set up shop right before sunrise. We remain over day in a compound and then fight, pick fights, or just wait for a fight. The next night we move on to another target, or move through some trench lines and into some really bad areas.
I’m with a private, the two of us walking point on a trench line running from one fighting position to another fighting position. We’re walking along the interior edge when he says to me, “Hey, keep your eyes open. We saw some movement here during the day.”
I work my way down the trench system. Then it makes a little shape, like an S. I look down the trench, but I can’t see all that much. I move, trying to stay as quiet as possible.
I hear talking. I’m thinking it’s one of my guys just being loud, like telling everyone to back off, try to spread out more. Then I listen a little closer and hear the voices speaking Pashto, the Iranian language of Pashtuns—and they’re close, really close. I have an adrenaline dump and stop dead in my tracks.
I jump on the radio. “I’ve got voices around this corner.”
A first sergeant responds. “Get over the wall. Keep it between you guys and see if you can spot where these guys are at.”
I back off a little bit. My squad jumps the wall and then I continue toward the S turn. As soon as I get around it, I hear machine-gun fire open and pepper the wall the squad is ducking behind.
We basically get up on this wall, throw the machine gun up over the top, and press fire. We shoot two of the guys who are trying to flee. I know there’s a third one somewhere. Every time I peek over the wall, I see a muzzle flash from below, where this third guy is shooting up at us.
My SAW jams. I take every grenade I have and throw them over the wall so I can buy myself enough time to fix the jam.
The bad guy stops firing. I wait.
It’s quiet.
“Push over the wall,” the first sergeant says. “Make sure you have support.”
We set up support. The guys in 3rd Squad push over the wall and begin to clear the trenches.
We jump over the wall. Right in front of us is a dirt walkway that drops down into a six-foot trench. We stand topside, looking down into it. As I walk, I find a little mud bridge that crosses the trench. Down to my right, my squad leader sits down on the edge of the trench, looks underneath the bridge to make sure the third guy that was shooting at us isn’t there.
I cross the bridge. On the other side I find a stockpile of guns the enemy tried to cover up. We’re in a bad area for IEDs, so I leave the stockpile alone, come back across the bridge, and start working my way down toward my squad leader. He drops into the trench, and I see gunfire coming from underneath the bridge.
I immediately turn and go to jump the wall to get cover. Then I hear my squad leader scream, and, knowing he got hit, I turn and run back to the trench line, where I see my private pulling my squad leader out of the trench. I jump down and give them suppressive fire, focusing on the area underneath the bridge. I can’t really see where the shooter is, so I just shoot everything to give them time to pull out my squad leader.
As soon as I know he’s out and clear, I jump out and jump back over the wall. Immediately we back off enough so the birds can drop fire.
I catch my breath and think to myself, I don’t think I can walk anymore.
I fall over.
I’ve been running on straight adrenaline, it was the only thing keeping me going, and now I’m starting to come off of it and my body realizes how tired it is, and I collapse.
I lie on my back in between rows inside a grape orchard, waiting for the fire to come, and I start thinking about Kevin. I pray he’s okay, wherever he is. Safe.
We’re going to go home, together, I keep telling myself.
The birds arrive and destroy the trench line from one end to the other.