For Army medic from Amherst, Afghan duty means his keeping guard up
A couple of weeks after Sgt. Jon Aisel’s Army National Guard unit arrived in Afghanistan this spring, members found themselves in a pitched, seven-hour battle with Taliban forces.
Aisel’s fellow soldiers were fighting side by side with their Afghan National Army allies.
When an Afghan sergeant was shot in the hip, Aisel, a medic, treated his wound even as they remained under heavy fire.
“Your adrenaline is pumping a lot. You hear [rocket-propelled grenades] go over your head,” Aisel, 25, an Amherst resident, said in a telephone interview this week from Kabul. “It’s either react time or be scared time. So I reacted.”
This is one of many challenging and life-changing experiences Aisel has gone through since arriving in April. Aisel is assigned as a medic to a team stationed in a remote part of northern Afghanistan that is mentoring and instructing new Afghan police officers.
“They do have a long way to go. They basically have to learn how to be police,” he said.
He is one of more than 300 Guard members from the Buffalo Niagara region, and 1,700 from across the state, working to secure the country and engage the Afghan population.
Afghanistan appears to have become more violent than Iraq in recent months, and three New York Army National Guard soldiers were killed there last month. The dead included Aisel’s good friend, Sgt. Nelson
D. Rodriguez-Ramirez, 22.
“It makes me more aware that it could happen to anybody at any time. You can’t get complacent here,” said Aisel, who said he’s trying to focus on memories of the good times they shared.
Even before joining the Guard in 2003, Aisel was familiar with the sacrifices that military service demanded.
His father, 1st Sgt. Troy Steward, is a former member of the active-duty military who now serves in the Army National Guard and last year completed a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
“He’s following in his father’s footsteps,” said Lt. Col. Paul A. Fanning, a Guard public affairs officer.
Aisel, who was born in Florida, grew up on military bases in Alaska and elsewhere before his family moved to this area when he was in high school. The Sweet Home High School graduate was a film major at the University at Buffalo at the time he deployed.
His unit, the 2nd Squadron 101st Cavalry based out of the Masten Avenue Armory, mobilized in January and made it to Afghanistan three months later.
Aisel handles medical responsibilities for the police mentoring team that is instructing Afghan police officers in areas such as legal issues, the proper treatment of prisoners and how best to interrogate suspects.
Aisel thinks American forces there are making progress. The soldiers are giving away soccer balls, tooth brushes and other items meant to ingratiate them with Afghan civilians.
“I feel it’s kind of a slow and steady difference, but [their work is making] a difference,” Aisel said.
His deployment should end next January. Aisel said it’s hard to be away from his family and his fiancee, Christine Geiger of East Aurora, for so long.
“I can talk to her [online] usually once a week, twice a week. I wish it was more,” he said.
There’s one other thing he misses about home. “You want me to be honest? Not having beer,” Aisel said with a laugh.
