From Spencer to Baghdad: Mark Harrell’s life of service

MARSHFIELD - Three Bronze Stars, three deployments to Iraq and a lifetime shaped by family, leadership and the soldiers he served alongside.

Retired Army Master Sgt. Mark Patrick Harrell paused as he remembered a visitor coming to his family’s home in Spencer nearly 50 years ago. For a moment, he seemed caught up in the memory.

“I’m sorry,” he said, gathering his thoughts before continuing.

It had been a proud day for his family. The visitor had come to present his father, David Harrell, with a Bronze Star Medal earned during World War II. The recommendation paperwork had been misplaced, delaying the award for approximately 34 years before it was finally presented in the late 1970s.

Mark would later follow his father into the Army, earning three Bronze Stars of his own during three deployments to Iraq.

Following in his father’s footsteps:

Mark Harrell grew up in Spencer as one of nine children, with five brothers and three sisters. The family lived in an old house that, according to family history, was among the few buildings to survive a devastating fire during the community’s early years. Once associated with Spencer’s logging industry, the former boardinghouse appeared in an old photograph showing loggers, horses and enormous logs outside the building.

Harrell attended Spencer High School, where he wrestled throughout his four years, including varsity competition.

David Harrell, originally from Texas, first enlisted in the Army in 1939, two years before the United States entered World War II. He was discharged in 1941, rejoined in 1943 and served in Europe through 1945. After the war, he entered the Army Reserve and was recalled to active duty in 1950 during the Korean conflict.
Mark said his father served with the 2nd Infantry Division during World War II and occasionally spoke about traveling across Europe with the Army. David liked to joke that he had toured Europe, but had done it on foot. He was more willing to share the humorous or unusual experiences than the worst parts of combat. Mark remembered hearing about soldiers finding bread, cheese and wine in European farmhouses. His father also described carrying hard candy on patrol so soldiers could suppress a cough when they needed to remain quiet.

Mark suspected his father had been a bit of a character during his Army years.

“He was probably pretty much a hellraiser in the Army,” he said, remembering the occasional stories that didn’t quite match the disciplined father he knew at home.

David rarely discussed his injuries. Mark said his father received a Purple Heart after a mortar explosion threw him from a foxhole. According to the family’s account, David later regained consciousness in a hospital. Much of what happened during those years remained something his father kept to himself.

At home, the military decorations hung in a shadow box, where Mark could study them. The medals told him his father had accomplished something important, even if he didn’t yet understand everything those experiences involved.

“I always looked up to that man,” Harrell said.

His father spent years working as a truck driver, often away from home while providing for the family. Mark credited him with establishing much of the discipline he remembered from childhood. Years later, when asked what lessons carried into his own military career, he spoke of structure, attention to detail and doing what you said you were going to do.

Three of Mark’s brothers also served. His oldest brother, Mike, was in the Army and Air Force. Danny made a career in the Navy and, according to Mark, served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway during the 1975 evacuation of Saigon. His younger brother, Rob, served in the Air Force.

Mark took a different path. For about 14 years, he worked in the grocery business as a meat cutter and meat department manager. His jobs included Webster’s in Spencer, Red and White Foods in Marshfield and other stores in central Wisconsin. By the early 1990s, he was married to Dorothy, and they had two young children.

He had considered military service before, but with a family and an established job, it wasn’t the same decision it might have been immediately after high school. The Persian Gulf War brought the idea back into focus. With brothers serving in the military and the conflict unfolding overseas, Mark began thinking more seriously about joining.

His father’s service weighed heavily in the decision. He preferred the Army because he wanted to serve on the ground, much as David had done. After discussing the idea with Dorothy and seeking his father’s advice, Mark enlisted in the Army Reserve on April 27, 1991, at almost 31 years old.

Basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, introduced him to an entirely different environment. Most of the recruits were years younger, some only 17 or 18. Harrell was older than several of the drill sergeants.
“I was the old guy,” he said.

He remembered being called “old man,” “grandpa,” and just about everything other than his name. He accepted the attention as part of the experience, although he admitted there were advantages to arriving with more life experience than most of the younger recruits.

Before entering the Army, Harrell had worked as a Nautilus fitness instructor in Port Edwards, so physical conditioning was familiar to him. He also tried to help the younger men understand that they could make training easier on themselves by working together.

“We can make this easy or we can make this hard,” he remembered telling them. “All we gotta do is be where we’re supposed to be, do what you’re told, and don’t fight amongst ourselves.”

The approach generally worked, although he recalled that not everyone appreciated having another recruit telling them what to do. He performed well during training and received recognition for his efforts.

Harrell had originally been interested in construction engineering, thinking the specialty could provide useful civilian job skills. Instead, he found himself drawn to combat engineering, where soldiers worked with demolitions, explosives, mines, obstacles and the equipment needed to support infantry and armored units. He laughed about the appeal of the work compared with his civilian jobs back home in Wisconsin.

“You can’t go to work every day and blow something up,” he said.

His first assignment was with the 397th Engineer Battalion in Wisconsin. During his Reserve service, he participated in a mission to Panama, where Army engineers helped build a school for children in a rural village. He traveled by helicopter into the area and spent about a month on the project. He enjoyed the work but wanted more than part-time military service. On March 25, 1993, he entered the active-duty Army and received orders to Fort Stewart, Georgia.

Dorothy and the children moved with him to Fort Stewart. Before the family had finished settling into its new home, Harrell left for about a month of training in the Mojave Desert. He would make numerous trips to the desert during his years at Fort Stewart, training for the kinds of operations that later became part of his wartime responsibilities.

In 1998, Harrell returned to Wisconsin for recruiting duty in the Stevens Point area. He and his family lived in Plover during the three-year assignment. Harrell hadn’t wanted recruiting duty, but he was good at it. He believed young people considering the military deserved honest information and should choose jobs they wanted rather than being pressured into specialties that didn’t interest them.

He was credited with enlisting 122 soldiers and earned a Gold Recruiter Badge with three star sapphires, a recruiter ring and Recruiter of the Year recognition. The Army wanted him to continue recruiting, but Harrell wanted to return to engineering.

He next spent about a year with the Eighth U.S. Army in South Korea. The tour was unaccompanied, meaning Dorothy and the children remained in the United States. One benefit of the assignment was the opportunity to select a preferred duty station afterward, and Harrell arranged to return to Fort Stewart, where his children wanted to continue their schooling. By early 2003, he was back in Georgia preparing for an overseas deployment.

The Road to Baghdad:

Harrell arrived in Kuwait in January 2003 as American forces prepared for war with Iraq. He served as a sergeant first class, E-7, with the 11th Engineer Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division. Before armored vehicles and other military formations could advance north into Iraq, combat engineers had to open routes through the fortified border. Large earthen berms, anti-tank ditches, fencing, wire and other obstacles blocked their way.

Harrell said engineers were preparing the border crossing March 18-20, 2003, as American forces moved into position. In the sector assigned to the division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, engineers prepared five lanes through the border obstacles to allow military vehicles to cross.

Harrell said the 11th Engineer Battalion also operated near Jalibah Airfield and An Nasiriyah during the advance through southern Iraq. One of his strongest memories came near As Samawah.

As the convoy approached the city, Harrell said civilians were waving along the route. At first, the reception appeared welcoming. Then the soldiers entered an area with taller buildings and narrow streets, where the situation changed almost immediately.

“It was a complete ambush,” he said.

Gunfire came from rooftops, windows, alleys and surrounding buildings. The confined streets forced the armored vehicles to move in a column, making it difficult to maneuver or determine where the firing was coming from.

“We had to go in a column because the streets were narrow,” Harrell said. Once the shooting started, the soldiers tried to find their way out while returning fire.

Harrell was operating from the turret of an M113 armored personnel carrier, serving as a track commander and operating a .50-caliber machine gun. The soldiers fired toward positions from which they were being attacked as they attempted to work their way through the city.

He estimated going through three or four cans of .50-caliber ammunition during the engagement.
Harrell said his unit did not lose anyone in the fighting, although other American units in the area suffered casualties. He could not recall whether those casualties included soldiers killed or wounded. He placed the fighting around March 22-23, 2003.

The convoy eventually made its way out of As Samawah and continued north by a different route. The detour put the soldiers behind schedule, and severe sandstorms soon reduced visibility enough to prevent the column from moving as planned.

“Couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t do nothing,” he said.

The column spent days in the desert. The soldiers had expected to move quickly toward Baghdad, but the sandstorms kept them in place.

When the column was able to move again, Harrell’s unit continued toward Baghdad. He said the fighting was heavy near Saddam International Airport, now Baghdad International Airport, with rocket-propelled grenades passing near American vehicles.

Harrell also remembered Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, an engineer from Company B of the 11th Engineer Battalion. Smith was killed April 4, 2003, during combat near the airport while protecting fellow soldiers and helping defend the evacuation of wounded personnel. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2005. Smith served in a different company, and Harrell did not witness his final engagement, but the account remained part of Harrell’s memories of the fighting around Baghdad.

The 3rd Infantry Division continued its advance into the city, including the armored movements known as the Thunder Runs. Amid the gunfire, explosions and noise of military vehicles, his thoughts sometimes returned to his father.

David Harrell had fought in Europe during World War II but rarely talked about the most difficult moments. Mark had grown up hearing occasional stories and studying his father’s decorations without knowing much about what combat had been like.

Now, surrounded by those sounds himself, he wondered whether his father had heard the same kind of noise or faced similar confusion while fighting across Europe.

Following the initial fighting, Harrell’s engineering work included locating and removing Iraqi weapons and ammunition left in warehouses, abandoned military areas and public locations. Some dangerous materials had been discovered near places where civilians could encounter them, including schoolyards and areas beneath overpasses.

His military award records describe responsibilities involving the collection, transportation and removal of enemy military equipment. The assignments required working with other units and carefully handling potentially dangerous weapons and explosives. Harrell received his first Bronze Star for his meritorious service during the deployment, including his combat engineering responsibilities and work involving captured enemy ammunition.

Returning to Fort Stewart brought relief at being reunited with Dorothy and their children, but Harrell said he was different after his time in Iraq. He was more alert, more conscious of his surroundings and more likely to notice things that reminded him of the dangers overseas. He also understood that Dorothy had been making household decisions while he was gone. Returning soldiers had to allow their families time to adjust rather than expecting everything to return immediately to the way it had been before deployment.

Harrell would draw upon those experiences later when helping younger soldiers deal with their own returns from combat.

A Different War:

Harrell returned to Iraq in 2005, this time as a platoon sergeant with Echo Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team.

American forces were dealing with insurgent activity, improvised explosive devices, raids and security patrols. Harrell said his company was responsible for its own area of operations, conducting patrols and searches for wanted individuals while responding to threats within that territory.

Some of the broader search efforts involved figures associated with the coalition’s well-known playing-card list of former Iraqi regime officials.

One raid remained vivid in Harrell’s memory.

The unit had received information that a wanted individual might be hiding in a particular house. Soldiers established positions around the neighborhood and prepared to enter the building, knowing they could encounter armed resistance. Harrell remembered being especially wary of the enclosed stairs. A grenade thrown down the stairway could have injured or killed the soldiers moving upward. They managed to reach the entrance, take their positions and enter the house without a firefight.

After searching the building, Harrell and several soldiers checked the roof. That’s when they noticed another doorway, partly obscured by items that had been placed around it.

“It was just a happenstance that we saw this door,” Harrell said.

The opening led toward another enclosed staircase and a series of rooms beneath the main part of the house. As the soldiers approached, they could hear people below. An interpreter helped communicate with the occupants. Harrell said the soldiers demanded that those inside come out, and the men eventually surrendered.

According to Harrell, the operation resulted in the detention of four men he understood to be high-value targets. He no longer remembers their names. The soldiers took the men into custody without firing during the apprehension.

“It was just unbelievably successful,” he said.

Harrell’s military award narrative credits him with leading more than 350 combat patrols during the deployment, as well as contributing to numerous security and engineering missions. Improvised explosive devices were among the greatest dangers. Harrell remembered explosives concealed along roads, behind guardrails, beneath debris and in objects that might appear harmless to someone passing by.

Army engineers used specialized vehicles and detection equipment, including systems designed to identify suspicious materials beneath road surfaces. Even with those tools, soldiers had to remain watchful throughout every patrol. Harrell said the experience followed him home. An object along an ordinary American road could bring back memories of explosives encountered in Iraq.

During one patrol, Harrell and his soldiers heard gunfire coming from a nearby town. They investigated and learned that a shopkeeper had been killed. Harrell understood the shooting to be connected to accusations that the man had cooperated with American forces.

He also recalled operations involving black-market gasoline. His soldiers sometimes seized barrels of fuel from unauthorized sellers, and Harrell described arranging for recovered gasoline to be distributed without charge to local residents.

Harrell remembered helping support security efforts during some of the country’s early national elections after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He recalled Iraqi voters walking through their communities with fingers stained purple, showing that they had participated in the voting process. Harrell earned his second Bronze Star for his leadership and meritorious service during the deployment.

Back in the United States, he continued advancing through the Army’s enlisted ranks. In September 2006, he became a first sergeant, taking on responsibility for approximately 120 soldiers.

Airborne School at 46:

At 46, Harrell finally had the opportunity to attend Army airborne school at Fort Benning, Georgia. He had wanted to earn parachutist wings for years, but opportunities to attend the training had been limited during his engineering career. When the chance came, he was determined to complete it despite training alongside soldiers young enough to be his children.

“I always wanted airborne wings,” he said.

The three-week course included physical conditioning, ground training, parachute landing techniques, tower exercises and jumps from aircraft. Harrell said he had to meet fitness requirements associated with a much younger age group. The instructors were demanding, and he remembered having to keep up with the pace of younger trainees. He believed his years of staying physically active helped him complete the training.

He kept the assignment mostly to himself. Dorothy knew where he was going, but other family members did not. There was another concern. His daughter was scheduled to be married about two weeks after he returned, and Harrell wanted to be sure he could still walk her down the aisle.

One jump nearly complicated those plans.

During the descent, Harrell became disoriented beneath his parachute. He couldn’t tell whether he was drifting forward or backward and attempted to correct his movement by pulling on the risers. Unfortunately, he was already traveling backward. The adjustment increased his speed, and he struck the ground hard. Harrell said he experienced a severe headache for days afterward and believes he suffered a concussion.

He remembered an instructor checking whether he could walk off the landing area. Once Harrell said he could, the instructor was ready to send him back for another jump. Despite the rough landing, he completed airborne school and earned his parachutist wings. It remained one of his proudest accomplishments and gave him something to tease his brothers about. They had served in different military branches, with awards and experiences of their own, but, as Harrell pointed out with a laugh, they had never jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

To Be Continued…