Friend was killed by mortar attacks
Just wanted to share this letter with anyone who's interested. It was published in the local paper and written by Josh's driving partner. :(
Goodbye to a brother
This e-mail to the Globe Gazette was written by Sgt. Peter Bieber, Nora Springs, whose 1133rd Transportation Co. driving partner, Spc. Josh Knowles, Sheffield, was killed in a mortar attack Thursday. It was received Sunday night.
“What’s goin’ on, brother?”
That’s the phrase I heard almost every morning when I climbed into the cab of my truck and set off on another mission with my truck partner for the last year, Spc. Josh Knowles. It was probably the thing that was most noticeably missing from my life when I awoke Friday morning following surgery the night before. Having someone in your life like Josh, and working with him so closely on a daily basis, you notice the massive hole in your life when he is gone.
I remember a saying that goes, “A man is not judged by how much he loves, but by how much he is loved by others.”
I think that phrase describes Josh perfectly. There was not a single person in the 1133rd that he did not have a huge impact on.
Many people have said that Josh had a heart of gold. I would go so far as to say that Josh had a heart of gold, encased in platinum and encrusted with diamonds. No person could have a more loyal or fierce a friend than Josh Knowles. I was proud to call him my friend and honored that he considered me a friend.
Shortly after I joined the 1133rd, one of our drill weekends was spent doing a field training exercise at a campground near Belmond. After our training had concluded for the day, the whole platoon had a barbecue and sat around a campfire until late in the night. We were telling stories and jokes the whole time.
I kept wondering if Josh was ever going to run out of them. He probably told more funny stories and jokes himself than the rest of the platoon combined. It was the first opportunity I had to get to know Josh, and I liked him immediately.
Maybe it is the fact that opposites attract. Josh and I were so very different in so many ways. Sometimes he would absolutely drive me nuts because he was so off the wall and so bigger than life. Sometimes he would have to laugh and say, “Beebs, you need to relax!” I realized that he’d only been trying to push my buttons, and would do so often. Gradually, I began to learn what he was up to and I just played the game right back.
It was then that we really began to work as a team. We started to call each other by the nicknames we gave each other — “Zatara” and “Jacopo” — from the movie “The Count of Monte Cristo,” a movie we both loved and watched often during missions on his portable DVD player.
I began to be able to count on Josh and know he was going to back me up when I needed it. I didn’t have a lot of experience driving a truck since I was previously an Army medic before I came to the 1133rd. Josh had a sense of creativity that I could rely on to accomplish the mission.
Last summer, we were tasked to haul water from a warehouse in Kuwait City all the way to Mosul in northern Iraq. The water came in boxes that were stacked on wooden pallets. Many of the pallets were damaged and had begun to lean and tip as soon as they were loaded.
I asked Josh, “How the heck are we going to get this water to Mosul without spilling?” Josh replied, as usual, “No problem, brother.” He asked me to grab some Air Force cargo nets and our regular cargo straps, and we proceeded to rig a web-like harness over the entire load and secure it.
Because of Josh’s creativity, we didn’t drop a single bottle of water throughout that 900- mile trip across the entire length of Iraq.
JOSH WAS also known for being a guy that anyone could go to for help with maintenance of their vehicles and equipment. Maintenance guys would routinely ask us to loan Josh to them when they had a lot of work to get done.
Sometimes he had the ability to just listen for sounds in the engine that would tell him something was about to go bad. One day, he asked me, “Hear that, bro? Sounds like our fan clutch is going bad.” I couldn’t hear a thing. Sure enough, about four days later our truck would have to make the return leg of the mission getting towed back to Kuwait due to a faulty fan clutch.
On another mission to Iraq, an 1133rd truck lost a trailer tire, tire rim and spacer for the duals. The axle was dragging badly on the ground and we had no maintenance trail party to help. Josh asked me to fetch him some tools and a chain. Josh chained up the axle to secure it in place (which) allowed the truck to continue on and get out of a hostile area. Josh was single-handedly responsible for that convoy being able to continue its mission.
I LEARNED a lot from Josh during the time that we rode together. We watched out for each other in every way. I knew Josh had my back and he knew that I was watching his.
When he got sick last fall and became very dehydrated, I was the one who treated him and started his IV and helped him get back on his feet. When someone else was hurt or sick and needed my help, I would grab my Combat Lifesaver bag and Josh would always run to the truck and grab the rest of my medical gear ... Josh was there whenever I needed him and I am proud to be able to say I did the same for him.
Some people, Josh included, would probably say that he wasn’t a soldier’s soldier. Maybe not. Sure, he wasn’t the kind of guy to have his boots spit-shined, his uniform starched and his brass buckle polished for each drill. But I would definitely say that Josh was and is one hell of a trooper.
Josh could do the kind of details that no one else in their right mind would want to do and he would do them with that famous ear-to-ear grin on his face. Digging pits, breaking down mountains of tires or filling sandbags; it didn’t matter. Josh loved to work, loved to have his hands dirty and loved having something to do. There were times when I would practically have to beg him just to let me help change a tire. “No problem, brother! I got it.” And he always did.
I CAN’T offer a reason for why I’m still here and Josh isn’t. It is a question that I will wonder and think about for the rest of my life. I wish there was something profound that I could say to make this easier for (parents) Les, Sandy and the rest of Josh’s family, as well as the 1133rd. I would gladly have traded places with Josh, but I also know that Josh would never have allowed me to do that. That’s just the way he was. For him, there would have been no greater honor than giving his life for his country. He was a patriot in every sense of the word. Sometimes, there just aren’t enough of those to go around.
I am immensely proud of all the things that we have done while we’ve been deployed. And I am especially thankful to have been able to share a lot of that with Josh. We were one heck of a team. The whole company is. And so, for the second time in my life, I have to say good-bye to a brother.
As Josh would say, “I got nothin’ but love for ya, brother.”
So long, Josh. We will miss you.
