Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

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Michael Trost

Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) | 489th Civil Affairs Battalion

The men of the 489th Civil affairs Battalion were having a good deployment in Afghanistan despite mistrust of their Afghan allies and intermittent funding for their projects. That all changed one day when they took an official from USAID with them to assess local schools. Out of nowhere, machine gun fire erupted and a scramble for life began. Michael Trost, Robert Rose and Colin Walsh combine to tell the story of this surprise attack. (Caution: strong language.) (29:52)
Michael Vernello

WWII | 227th Field Artillery Battalion, 29th Infantry Division

He had opened his own hair salon and was doing well, but Michael Vernello was drafted into the Army where he was assigned to the field artillery. The whole unit went to Florida for swim training and they thought they were boarding trucks back to camp. Instead, they were taken to a dock. (3:41)
Michael Vernello made it to shore at Omaha Beach, but then he had to wait forty days for his weapon, a large artillery piece to arrive. Deep water and bad weather kept it off shore. Once they got going through France, they moved only forward. (3:16)
Michael Vernello recalls how it was so cold at the Battle of the Bulge, the ground was frozen and they couldn't dig in. At the end of the war, he met his Russian counterparts in a heavy artillery unit and was very surprised. With four Bronze Stars and many battles behind him, he was one of the first to go home. (2:48)
Mike Barno

Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) | 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division

His father was a career Army officer from West Point. Mike Barno did not have the desire to attend the Academy, but he was attracted to the military and went to the Citadel. There he became focused on academics and a pre-med path. (4:30)
Mike Barno was leaving a class at the Citadel when he noticed students had gathered around the television in the student center. They told him a plane had just hit a building in New York. As they watched, a second plane hit and from that point forward, everything changed. (2:21)
Taking advantage of an Army scholarship, Mike Barno attended dental school and became a member of the Army Dental Corps. He went to a residency at Fort Benning, where, in addition to fixing teeth, he want to Airborne School. Then he was attached to the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, which was slated for a tour in Afghanistan. (7:00)
The unit prepped for a year in Hawaii for deployment to Afghanistan. Dentist Mike Barno's job was to get the men in good dental health before they shipped out. The route to the war zone was a strange one that included the North Pole and Germany. (6:01)
The dentist was part of the medical company at the base in Afghanistan. Mike Barno describes the operation of that unit and the importance of his additional duty, triage officer in mass casualty events. (7:23)
When a vehicle loaded with explosives blew up at the gate, dental officer Mike Barno hurried to his emergency assignment, triage at the aid station. A truck with wounded men from the Afghan Army pulled up and he jumped into the back, ready to help. (6:58)