For the troops: Pete Gillen spreads goodwill in Afghanistan

Most of Pete Gillen’s week-long goodwill trip to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan had gone about as well as could be expected until the ride back from Bagram Air Base to Kabul.

Gillen, the former University of Virginia basketball coach and current CBS Sports television commentator, and a group of other coaches and former coaches had felt pretty secure up until that point.

Traveling in a Blackhawk helicopter, Gillen was peering out the window, noticing all the huts dotting the landscape when all of a sudden he saw two flares zooming past the helicopter. Thirty seconds later, two more flares go zooming by.

“I know it’s not a missile, but I’m wondering,  ‘What the hell was that?’” Gillen said. “I looked at the Manhattan coach [Barry Rohrssen], who saw the flares, too. Nobody told me there were going to be flares. I thought the Taliban was shooting up some flares and then bullets might be flying.”

The co-pilot spoke into Gillen’s headset that they were smoke flares, and later explained that when devices on the helicopters detect something metallic on the ground or something unusual in the atmosphere, flares are automatically released to draw potential enemy fire away from the aircraft.

Other than those few anxious moments, Gillen, former UVa player and coach Jeff Jones (now head coach at American), former Jones assistant Dennis Wolff, former UVa assistant Dave Odom, Rohrssen, Gary Stewart of Cal-Davis, and Reggie Minton, deputy director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, felt pretty safe during their “Operation Hoop Talk” sponsored by the USO.

Gillen, who still lives in Charlottesville with his wife, Ginnie, said it was an eye-opening experience, first visiting wounded troops at Walter Reed Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital, then trekking through the desolate countryside of Afghanistan.

He truly understood the old expression that war is hell after witnessing what sacrifices have been made by young soldiers and the collateral damage to some Afghan citizens. Living in a wooden hut with a 60-yard walk to the bathroom, which was adorned by a sign that read “Beware of Snakes,” with someone’s scribbling below adding, “And the Spiders,” wasn’t exactly a stay at the Waldorf Astoria, but the coaches managed.

As tough as the trip was, Gillen said he would do it again tomorrow if they asked him. In fact, he drove from Charlottesville to Chevy Chase, Md., to caddy for a Wounded Warriors golf tournament on Tuesday.

The trip began at the hospitals where the coaches met with wounded troops, most of whom were amputees due to injuries received in the war.

“One poor guy had lost both his legs and both his arms,” Gillen said. “It was the first time in this war that somebody had lost all four appendages and survived. He must have been 21 or 22. He had lost an eye, and as sad as it was, he was such a great kid.”

The soldier was a devout Yankees fan and Wolff gave him a Yankee hat. Manhattan’s Rohrssen, who had been part of a Big East championship at Pitt, put his title ring on the finger of the soldier’s prosthesis.

Another soldier who had undergone 130 surgeries and procedures had one leg and was in a wheelchair. Part of the tattoo on his arm that he showed the coaches was missing because that part of his arm was missing, too.

“We all stood up to have a photo taken with him and he insisted that if we were standing, he would, too, and he got up on his crutches for the photo,” Gillen said.

Gillen gave out Conference USA t-shirts and CBS Sports hats. Jones distributed American U shirts and UVa gave Wolff some Wahoo paraphernalia to give out. All the coaches and former coaches brought gifts to give to the troops.

After the hospital tour, the group flew to Kuwait where it was 110 degrees, then flew the next day to Kandahar, Afghanistan.

“We took a C-17 cargo plane and it was like flying in a sardine can,” Gillen commented. “It was cramped. Four hours flying time, I had this big helmet on and, I have such a big head, it kept falling off. I got a 60- or 80-pound flak jacket on. My nose is running. It wasn’t comfortable, but no one was complaining.”

In Kandahar, the coaches gave out more stuff to the troops, had meet and greets with them, signed autographs, posed for photos and talked basketball.

The next day, they were off to Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, passing over the towering, rugged mountain terrain.

“I don’t know how people live there,” Gillen said.

It was Bagram where Gillen’s heart was broken.

It was in the base hospital there that Gillen and the coaches met a little 8-year-old girl named Razia, who had been significantly burned and disfigured when her home had been destroyed by a weapon containing white phosphorus, a lethal chemical.

Her face, head, neck and arms had been scorched yellow, pink and black. Her hair was burned away. They were told that when the doctors tried to scrape away the dead tissue, flames leaped out as the white phosphorous burned itself out.

She had been recovering for three months and endured more than 15 surgeries. She has since been released, but the family’s home was destroyed. Two of her siblings had been killed in the incident.

“She talked to us some and it was so sad,” Gillen said. “The nurses there painted her nails and then she painted theirs, little red dots on her fingernails.”

Gillen grew appreciative of the work doctors and nurses were doing there at the Bagram base. In fact, unsolicited, when UVa doctors and nurses learned that he would be making the trip, they all signed a thank you letter to the surgeons and nurses of Bagram for working their miracles.

“Dr. Jon McKnight, a wonderful guy, had given me some tetanus and typhoid shots before I left and he asked if I would take a letter on UVa Hospital stationary that thanked the troops, and thanked the doctors and nurses over there, that we all appreciate what they are doing over there, and that all of us back home think of them every day.

“The nurses at Bagram’s crisis unit were so excited to get that letter, it meant so much to them, that they put it on their bulletin board,” Gillen said. “They just wanted to be noticed and appreciated. It was so nice for the UVa hospital staff to do that.”

Gillen said Odom was great in coming up with basketball games they could play with the troops over there.

One night, back in Kuwait, Gillen had dinner with what he called the biggest human being he had ever seen. He gave the guy an extra-large shirt, that barely covered the soldier’s arm.

“I told him I feel right at home because I have such a big head that when I was in college, they used to call me ‘Headquarters,’” Gillen laughed. “That was my nickname because my head was so big.”

Because it was karaoke night at the base, Gillen, a pretty good singer, got up and did “Doo Wah Diddy,” which even impressed the USO rep, who used to be the stage manager for Led Zeppelin.

“I think the soldiers really appreciated us being there and spending time with them,” Gillen said. “It had been a long time since they could laugh it up and talk about sports and things with some new faces from back home. Seeing these young men and women and the sacrifices they make daily was so heartwarming.

“I hope that in some way, I gave a little something back to them,” Gillen said. “We all hear and read about the war, but until you see it, there’s no other way to put it in perspective.”