Captain Andrew Brennan
US Army Pilot – Blackhawk Helicopters
10th Combat Aviation Brigade
FOB Shank Logar Province, Afghanistan
US Army Pilot – Blackhawk Helicopters
10th Combat Aviation Brigade
FOB Shank Logar Province, Afghanistan
Andrew Brennan was born into a blue collar family of steamfitters outside of Pittsburgh. The Brennan family has a history of military service. His father was part of the occupational forces in Japan, two uncles were part of the D-Day invasion and a 2nd cousin was killed in Vietnam and was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.
Andrew and his sister attended the local Catholic grammar school and went on to attended Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh. Andrew recalled the sacrifices his family made to send him and his sister to private school. He wanted to attend Notre Dame for college and then go to law school, but 9/11 changed his thinking. On 9/11 the students in his high school, as in most highs schools in the country, were being sent home. Andrew called his grandfather and asked him to pick him up at school. On the ride home his grandfather said, “the war that is going to follow is going to change your generation. You need to be on the right side of that.” The events of the day and his grandfather’s words changed Andrew’s mind and he decided he would apply to the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy and pursue a career that involved flying. Unfortunately for Andrew, after taking the physical, he learned he did not meet the eyesight requirements for flying. Still feeling the need to serve his country, Andrew obtained an ROTC scholarship and applied to Carnegie Mellon University. Andrew was initially waited listed but used an in-person interview to make a colorful and creative argument that he was the best candidate Carnegie Mellon could select. He was admitted. Unfortunately, he found the experience lacked the camaraderie he was looking for and he felt he could find it at the service academies. He reapplied to all of the service academies and was selected by West Point. He was asked why he wanted to give up all of the opportunities that Carnegie Mellon would provide for an insufferable life at West Point. His answer was he was looking to serve his country and develop life-long friendships.
Andrew entered West Point in 2004 with the intention of making the military a career. He graduated in 2008 and headed for flight school at Fort Rucker in Alabama. After 18 months he completed his training and went to Fort Drum in New York where he joined the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade and assumed command of a Blackhawk air assault helicopter platoon. The Blackhawk helicopter has two door gunners and can carry 11 troops. The thin air at the high altitudes of Afghanistan required much more power from the engines to reach the required flight altitudes which limited capacity to only 4 troops. With this limitation in Afghanistan, the Blackhawk was used primarily as a utility helicopter in the point to point movement of troops and equipment around the battlefield, resupply missions and casualty evacuation.
Over the next eight months Andrew and his men trained for their deployment to Afghanistan. When it came time to deploy Andrew, who was not married, had no children and no girlfriend, had a very stoic approach to the dangers of combat and the possibility of not returning home. On the day of their departure, Andrew was sitting at the Rapid Deployment Facility with one of his warrant officers who was a very senior pilot, waiting to board their plane. “Sir, are you scared?” Andrew replied, “No. Worst case scenario my father and sister are presented with a flag.” After thinking for a moment, the warrant officer said, “They say, he who fears nothing, loves nothing.” On the flight over to Afghanistan, the words of the warrant officer slowly sank in, and Andrew realized that many of that many of the men he would be leading were leaving families they worried about. Andrew realized he would have to adapt his leadership style to include recognizing some of his men had a very different approach to managing the fear that comes from deploying into a combat zone.
Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank in the Lugar Province in eastern Afghanistan would be Andrew’s home for the next several months. FOB Shank earned the distinct honor of being the most rocketed FOB in Afghanistan. Initially Andrew assumed command of a platoon of 25 men. Some were very seasoned soldiers with 3 or 4 deployments under their belts. He quickly realized there was a lot for him to learn from his men and he also knew he would have to earn their respect. The warrant officers in his command were experienced pilots who were most concerned with Andrew’s technical flying capabilities. Over time he proved himself and earned their respect as a pilot.
While flying his missions Andrew frequently came under enemy fire but his Blackhawk was never battle-damaged. At times he took RPG fire but the aim of the enemy left a lot to be desired. His FOB often took indirect fire but did not result in casualties. Andrew recalled receiving a call from the TOC (Tactical Operation Command) to pilot a raid targeting several HVT (High Value Targets). There were several HVT’s on the local list and two on the Theater List. Those two were “really bad guys”. Most missions are conducted at night where the US holds the decided advantage due to its night vision capabilities, but this mission was to be carried out during day light hours which was very unusual. The mission was a complete success with the single largest hit of HVT’s at one time. No US casualties.
Andrew talked about the difference between how flight crews and ground troops learned of killed or wounded teammates. Ground troops can immediately see when their teammates are wounded or killed. Air crews generally find out when they leave their barracks for a mission, walk by an empty bunk and realize the crew didn’t return from their mission the day or night before. Andrew experienced this type of loss on August 6, 2011. On his way into his office, he noticed the flag was at half-mast. He learned that one of the pilots in his battalion, Bryan Nichols, had been involved in a Special Forces operation the night before. A contingent of Rangers were on an operation that was going as planned when Special Operations Command received intelligence that a large group of military age males were approaching the Rangers. The decision was made to send a helicopter with Navy SEALS and Army NightStalkers to eliminate the enemy. Upon final approach, Extortion 17 was hit with an RPG, burst into flames and broke into pieces before hitting the ground. To this day Extortion 17 remains the single largest loss of life in the Global War on Terror. Five of those killed were an air crew from Andrew’s battalion. “One of the things about getting that close to that kind of loss of life; your bad days aren’t as bad” as you think. Today Andrew wears a KIA bracelet with Bryan’s name on it.
The most stressful part of Andrew’s deployment was when he was promoted to Captain and moved to Battalion. There he was responsible for coordinating and planning air missions to support 5,000+ infantry troops across three provinces. In this area of operation, the mountains and terrain severely limited the mobility of the ground troops. There were a limited number of roads that funneled the American forces through the valleys while the enemy took the high ground and the advantage in finding the US forces. Further complicating the situation were the IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) planted along these roads. The troops heavily relied on the Blackhawks to move them around the battlefield and get them safely to their mission sights.
At times bureaucracy was a major source of frustration for Andrew in planning air missions. The LT’s and LT. Col’s held on to mission approval authority rather than delegate to the troops on the ground. Often they required 72 hours advance notice of missions so they could provide their approval. Circumstances were constantly changing in a fluid combat environment, and this resulted in continuous changes to missions which then had to be re-approved. Andrew noted, in the end it didn’t affect the mission but it did stunt leadership development and decision making skills. It also made it harder for the soldiers involved to execute the mission.
Andrew intended to make the Army a career, but he developed a medical condition during his deployment and the Army medically retired him. “I was pretty bumbed out about that. I really enjoyed what I was doing, and I enjoyed flying.”
Andrew talked about the difficulty of veterans reintegrating to daily life in the US when they return from deployment. “I went from a funeral service downrange in-country, on to Kurdistan for one day and landed back in the US the following day.”
After leaving the Army, Andrew planned to move into corporate America and utilize the skills he had developed in the military. He went to a junior officer placement firm and got a job with a Fortune 50 company involved in the logistics function which matched his military experience. “I hated it. I was bored out of my mind. I was used to having more balls to jungle (in the military).” Andrew had a sympathetic boss who redesigned his position to broaden his involvement into many facets of the operations that other people who previously held his role never got involved with. Unfortunately, after a year and a half Andrew felt he was wasting his time and not making use of his skill set and resigned his position.
While pondering his next move, he heard about a veteran’s group, Warrior Hike. Veterans who joined would hike the Appalachian Trail (AT) or the Continental Divide or the Pacific Crest Trail. Andrew applied and was hoping to hike the AT. He received a call from the director of the organization to let him know he had been accepted but he was going to be sent to the 3,100 mile Continental Divide Trail because it was the more difficult trail and fit well with Andrew’s background of marathons and triathlons. 7 weeks into the hike Andrew broke his foot in New Mexico and had to sit out 6 weeks. During his 6 week healing period time Andrew drove a minivan to help shuttle the crew around areas made impassible by snow. Eventually Andrew got back on the trail and hiked various portions of the trail. His time was limited as he had to get back to Pittsburgh to begin his MBA program.
The Warrior Hike was connected to the VFW and the American Legion. The hike took them through many rural towns in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming where these VFWs and American Legions would provide them with pot luck dinners. Andrew met veterans from many American conflicts and his conversations with these men helped ease his transition to civilian life and introduced him to “The Run for the Wall”. This was a group of veterans riding their motorcycles to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Andrew began to think about veterans of his era and what kind of memorial they would want. Andrew decided he would throw himself into finding a way to get a memorial designed, erected and funded.
One of the first things Andrew did was to email the Outreach Director of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial outlining his idea for a memorial for the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and requested they have a phone call. Eventually the two men spoke, and Andrew was told fund raising would be impossible until the memorial was a “real thing” and that Congress had the power to decide if it was a real thing. Andrew also learned from that call, a law was passed in 1986, that prohibited Congress from erecting a military memorial until at least 10 years had passed since the end of hostilities of a particular war or conflict. At the time he learned about the law (2014) the GWOT had been going for 10 years and there was no end in sight. Andrew was aware that various military think tanks were saying this was a conflict that could last into perpetuity. “We’re never going to qualify…” he thought.
Andrew spent time thinking about what would be needed to get the project moving. By May 2015, while in his first semester of business school, he established a not-for-profit and recruited a board of directors. In November of 2015 Jan Scruggs, the man behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, wrote an op-ed for a military publication talking about how he had founded the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and how it had a positive impact it had on those veterans. His op-ed talked about the need for the country to start thinking about how to memorialize this generation of warriors. Andrew was very surprised to hear this, knowing he had discussed the idea for a GWOT memorial with Jan’s organization. Andrew learned that Jan had retired from the Vietnam War Memorial, but he was able to get Jan’s contact information. He sent Jan an email with his business plan and previous emails. Jan responded with an email that said little and left Andrew feeling deflated. A few minutes later a second email came through and it was clear that Jan had dug into the attached business plan. Jan wrote that he never had a detailed plan when he started pushing for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and they should speak immediately.
They spoke and talked about how difficult the project would be and getting the law changed by Congress would be an uphill battle. Jan sent Andrew a check for $1,000 and promised to get him an interview with the Associated Press to help move the project along. In February of 2016, while a full time MBA student, Andrew began shuttling to Washington, DC from Pittsburgh to lobby members of Congress to help change the law. By September of 2016 Andrew was successful in getting then Congressman Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, to introduce a bill to change the law. Subsequently Ryan Zinke became the Secretary of the Interior and was helpful in that role but Andrew now needed someone to introduce the bill. After much hard lobbying and an introduction to General David Petraeus who helped grease the skids, Andrew was successful in getting Lindsey Graham, Joni Ernst, Tammy Duckworth and Tom Cotton, to sponsor the bill. All four of the senators were veterans of the GWOT. Eventually the law was changed and after 4 years Andrew decided it was time to move on and use his West Point Degree, MBA and military experience to build a career.
Andrew has used his entrepreneurial spirit to build teams within organizations and start his own logistics company. I asked Andrew where he developed his entrepreneurial skills. “The government developed a skill set in me that came about because they threw a bunch of junior officers and non-commissioned officers into a foreign country with a half-baked strategic plan and limited resource and told us to figure it out.” Andrew is already planning the next chapters of his life which include applying to law school, helping a buddy with his political campaign and hopefully getting involved in government. “I wouldn’t want to be the President, but I would like to be the guy in the room advising on decisions.”
Andrew, we thank you for your time in Afghanistan, leading and caring for your men, taking risks that have allowed the rest of us live the good life back home. Also a big thank you for the heavy lifting you did to start the process of building a memorial for the men and women who have served in the GWOT.
Andrew and his sister attended the local Catholic grammar school and went on to attended Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh. Andrew recalled the sacrifices his family made to send him and his sister to private school. He wanted to attend Notre Dame for college and then go to law school, but 9/11 changed his thinking. On 9/11 the students in his high school, as in most highs schools in the country, were being sent home. Andrew called his grandfather and asked him to pick him up at school. On the ride home his grandfather said, “the war that is going to follow is going to change your generation. You need to be on the right side of that.” The events of the day and his grandfather’s words changed Andrew’s mind and he decided he would apply to the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy and pursue a career that involved flying. Unfortunately for Andrew, after taking the physical, he learned he did not meet the eyesight requirements for flying. Still feeling the need to serve his country, Andrew obtained an ROTC scholarship and applied to Carnegie Mellon University. Andrew was initially waited listed but used an in-person interview to make a colorful and creative argument that he was the best candidate Carnegie Mellon could select. He was admitted. Unfortunately, he found the experience lacked the camaraderie he was looking for and he felt he could find it at the service academies. He reapplied to all of the service academies and was selected by West Point. He was asked why he wanted to give up all of the opportunities that Carnegie Mellon would provide for an insufferable life at West Point. His answer was he was looking to serve his country and develop life-long friendships.
Andrew entered West Point in 2004 with the intention of making the military a career. He graduated in 2008 and headed for flight school at Fort Rucker in Alabama. After 18 months he completed his training and went to Fort Drum in New York where he joined the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade and assumed command of a Blackhawk air assault helicopter platoon. The Blackhawk helicopter has two door gunners and can carry 11 troops. The thin air at the high altitudes of Afghanistan required much more power from the engines to reach the required flight altitudes which limited capacity to only 4 troops. With this limitation in Afghanistan, the Blackhawk was used primarily as a utility helicopter in the point to point movement of troops and equipment around the battlefield, resupply missions and casualty evacuation.
Over the next eight months Andrew and his men trained for their deployment to Afghanistan. When it came time to deploy Andrew, who was not married, had no children and no girlfriend, had a very stoic approach to the dangers of combat and the possibility of not returning home. On the day of their departure, Andrew was sitting at the Rapid Deployment Facility with one of his warrant officers who was a very senior pilot, waiting to board their plane. “Sir, are you scared?” Andrew replied, “No. Worst case scenario my father and sister are presented with a flag.” After thinking for a moment, the warrant officer said, “They say, he who fears nothing, loves nothing.” On the flight over to Afghanistan, the words of the warrant officer slowly sank in, and Andrew realized that many of that many of the men he would be leading were leaving families they worried about. Andrew realized he would have to adapt his leadership style to include recognizing some of his men had a very different approach to managing the fear that comes from deploying into a combat zone.
Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank in the Lugar Province in eastern Afghanistan would be Andrew’s home for the next several months. FOB Shank earned the distinct honor of being the most rocketed FOB in Afghanistan. Initially Andrew assumed command of a platoon of 25 men. Some were very seasoned soldiers with 3 or 4 deployments under their belts. He quickly realized there was a lot for him to learn from his men and he also knew he would have to earn their respect. The warrant officers in his command were experienced pilots who were most concerned with Andrew’s technical flying capabilities. Over time he proved himself and earned their respect as a pilot.
While flying his missions Andrew frequently came under enemy fire but his Blackhawk was never battle-damaged. At times he took RPG fire but the aim of the enemy left a lot to be desired. His FOB often took indirect fire but did not result in casualties. Andrew recalled receiving a call from the TOC (Tactical Operation Command) to pilot a raid targeting several HVT (High Value Targets). There were several HVT’s on the local list and two on the Theater List. Those two were “really bad guys”. Most missions are conducted at night where the US holds the decided advantage due to its night vision capabilities, but this mission was to be carried out during day light hours which was very unusual. The mission was a complete success with the single largest hit of HVT’s at one time. No US casualties.
Andrew talked about the difference between how flight crews and ground troops learned of killed or wounded teammates. Ground troops can immediately see when their teammates are wounded or killed. Air crews generally find out when they leave their barracks for a mission, walk by an empty bunk and realize the crew didn’t return from their mission the day or night before. Andrew experienced this type of loss on August 6, 2011. On his way into his office, he noticed the flag was at half-mast. He learned that one of the pilots in his battalion, Bryan Nichols, had been involved in a Special Forces operation the night before. A contingent of Rangers were on an operation that was going as planned when Special Operations Command received intelligence that a large group of military age males were approaching the Rangers. The decision was made to send a helicopter with Navy SEALS and Army NightStalkers to eliminate the enemy. Upon final approach, Extortion 17 was hit with an RPG, burst into flames and broke into pieces before hitting the ground. To this day Extortion 17 remains the single largest loss of life in the Global War on Terror. Five of those killed were an air crew from Andrew’s battalion. “One of the things about getting that close to that kind of loss of life; your bad days aren’t as bad” as you think. Today Andrew wears a KIA bracelet with Bryan’s name on it.
The most stressful part of Andrew’s deployment was when he was promoted to Captain and moved to Battalion. There he was responsible for coordinating and planning air missions to support 5,000+ infantry troops across three provinces. In this area of operation, the mountains and terrain severely limited the mobility of the ground troops. There were a limited number of roads that funneled the American forces through the valleys while the enemy took the high ground and the advantage in finding the US forces. Further complicating the situation were the IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) planted along these roads. The troops heavily relied on the Blackhawks to move them around the battlefield and get them safely to their mission sights.
At times bureaucracy was a major source of frustration for Andrew in planning air missions. The LT’s and LT. Col’s held on to mission approval authority rather than delegate to the troops on the ground. Often they required 72 hours advance notice of missions so they could provide their approval. Circumstances were constantly changing in a fluid combat environment, and this resulted in continuous changes to missions which then had to be re-approved. Andrew noted, in the end it didn’t affect the mission but it did stunt leadership development and decision making skills. It also made it harder for the soldiers involved to execute the mission.
Andrew intended to make the Army a career, but he developed a medical condition during his deployment and the Army medically retired him. “I was pretty bumbed out about that. I really enjoyed what I was doing, and I enjoyed flying.”
Andrew talked about the difficulty of veterans reintegrating to daily life in the US when they return from deployment. “I went from a funeral service downrange in-country, on to Kurdistan for one day and landed back in the US the following day.”
After leaving the Army, Andrew planned to move into corporate America and utilize the skills he had developed in the military. He went to a junior officer placement firm and got a job with a Fortune 50 company involved in the logistics function which matched his military experience. “I hated it. I was bored out of my mind. I was used to having more balls to jungle (in the military).” Andrew had a sympathetic boss who redesigned his position to broaden his involvement into many facets of the operations that other people who previously held his role never got involved with. Unfortunately, after a year and a half Andrew felt he was wasting his time and not making use of his skill set and resigned his position.
While pondering his next move, he heard about a veteran’s group, Warrior Hike. Veterans who joined would hike the Appalachian Trail (AT) or the Continental Divide or the Pacific Crest Trail. Andrew applied and was hoping to hike the AT. He received a call from the director of the organization to let him know he had been accepted but he was going to be sent to the 3,100 mile Continental Divide Trail because it was the more difficult trail and fit well with Andrew’s background of marathons and triathlons. 7 weeks into the hike Andrew broke his foot in New Mexico and had to sit out 6 weeks. During his 6 week healing period time Andrew drove a minivan to help shuttle the crew around areas made impassible by snow. Eventually Andrew got back on the trail and hiked various portions of the trail. His time was limited as he had to get back to Pittsburgh to begin his MBA program.
The Warrior Hike was connected to the VFW and the American Legion. The hike took them through many rural towns in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming where these VFWs and American Legions would provide them with pot luck dinners. Andrew met veterans from many American conflicts and his conversations with these men helped ease his transition to civilian life and introduced him to “The Run for the Wall”. This was a group of veterans riding their motorcycles to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Andrew began to think about veterans of his era and what kind of memorial they would want. Andrew decided he would throw himself into finding a way to get a memorial designed, erected and funded.
One of the first things Andrew did was to email the Outreach Director of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial outlining his idea for a memorial for the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and requested they have a phone call. Eventually the two men spoke, and Andrew was told fund raising would be impossible until the memorial was a “real thing” and that Congress had the power to decide if it was a real thing. Andrew also learned from that call, a law was passed in 1986, that prohibited Congress from erecting a military memorial until at least 10 years had passed since the end of hostilities of a particular war or conflict. At the time he learned about the law (2014) the GWOT had been going for 10 years and there was no end in sight. Andrew was aware that various military think tanks were saying this was a conflict that could last into perpetuity. “We’re never going to qualify…” he thought.
Andrew spent time thinking about what would be needed to get the project moving. By May 2015, while in his first semester of business school, he established a not-for-profit and recruited a board of directors. In November of 2015 Jan Scruggs, the man behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, wrote an op-ed for a military publication talking about how he had founded the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and how it had a positive impact it had on those veterans. His op-ed talked about the need for the country to start thinking about how to memorialize this generation of warriors. Andrew was very surprised to hear this, knowing he had discussed the idea for a GWOT memorial with Jan’s organization. Andrew learned that Jan had retired from the Vietnam War Memorial, but he was able to get Jan’s contact information. He sent Jan an email with his business plan and previous emails. Jan responded with an email that said little and left Andrew feeling deflated. A few minutes later a second email came through and it was clear that Jan had dug into the attached business plan. Jan wrote that he never had a detailed plan when he started pushing for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and they should speak immediately.
They spoke and talked about how difficult the project would be and getting the law changed by Congress would be an uphill battle. Jan sent Andrew a check for $1,000 and promised to get him an interview with the Associated Press to help move the project along. In February of 2016, while a full time MBA student, Andrew began shuttling to Washington, DC from Pittsburgh to lobby members of Congress to help change the law. By September of 2016 Andrew was successful in getting then Congressman Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, to introduce a bill to change the law. Subsequently Ryan Zinke became the Secretary of the Interior and was helpful in that role but Andrew now needed someone to introduce the bill. After much hard lobbying and an introduction to General David Petraeus who helped grease the skids, Andrew was successful in getting Lindsey Graham, Joni Ernst, Tammy Duckworth and Tom Cotton, to sponsor the bill. All four of the senators were veterans of the GWOT. Eventually the law was changed and after 4 years Andrew decided it was time to move on and use his West Point Degree, MBA and military experience to build a career.
Andrew has used his entrepreneurial spirit to build teams within organizations and start his own logistics company. I asked Andrew where he developed his entrepreneurial skills. “The government developed a skill set in me that came about because they threw a bunch of junior officers and non-commissioned officers into a foreign country with a half-baked strategic plan and limited resource and told us to figure it out.” Andrew is already planning the next chapters of his life which include applying to law school, helping a buddy with his political campaign and hopefully getting involved in government. “I wouldn’t want to be the President, but I would like to be the guy in the room advising on decisions.”
Andrew, we thank you for your time in Afghanistan, leading and caring for your men, taking risks that have allowed the rest of us live the good life back home. Also a big thank you for the heavy lifting you did to start the process of building a memorial for the men and women who have served in the GWOT.