When Williston Park native Robert Mitchell joined the U.S. Army in 1995, he intended to remain in the service for only the term of his enlistment.
Today, after tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, Lt. Col. Mitchell is a career soldier who has learned many lessons fighting in both conflicts.
“I got to kick in the door and turn out the lights from two different ends of the spectrum,” he said. “I wonder some days why I’m still around.”
As a young captain, Mitchell served in the 744th Explosive Ordinance Disposal Battalion in Afghanistan during 2001 and 2002. His unit was one of the first ones sent into the country to clear the path for other troops to follow after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
As a native New York native who grew up in Williston Park and graduated from Mineola High School, Mitchell had intense feelings when he was being deployed.
“I was a New Yorker. 9/11 was personal for us,” Mitchell said, recalling that a friend of his wife died when the Twin Towers were destroyed.
His wife, the former Victoria Lofaro, also grew up in the Willistons, and attended St. Aidan School.
Mitchell had followed a family tradition and joined ROTC while attending SUNY Binghamton. He continued his ROTC training at Cornell University after graduation.
Mitchell’s father, Robert, is a retired policeman and U.S. Navy veteran. His father, Thomas, had been a career soldier.
The younger Robert Mitchell first got word that his unit was heading for Afghanistan four days after the terrorist attacks.
“I was pretty surprised,” he said.
The next surprise was waiting in Afghanistan in the tons of lethal ordinance the Soviet Army had dumped as it decamped from its ill considered war there.
“It looked like it rained ordinance there. People use them as decoration and everything you can imagine,” Mitchell recalled. “They don’t use them as ordinance anymore. It’s hard to deliver a bomb if all you own is a wheelbarrow.”
Old ordinance can be extremely volatile ordinance, as he and his unit learned first-hand.
“It’s angrier as it gets older,” he said, noting that whenever he and his soldiers encountered something fused “we treated it with respect.”
Mitchell said he had quite a few close calls. Some members of his unit were injured by mines the Soviets had left buried, but none of his men were killed. Even disarming ordinance at relatively safe distances posed problems.
“Sometimes when we were trying to defuse things, we’d set up a remote tool and it would fail and the item would detonate and cause destruction,” Mitchell said.
That deployment caused his father, who is president of the Williston Park Civic Association, and his mother Sally some anxious moments.
“Nobody knew what was going on and the second day some people got injured by mines,” Mitchell said.
Some news outlets reported that members of explosive ordinance disposal units were killed, Mitchell recalled.
During Mitchell’s deployment in Iraq, he was able to communicate daily with his parents via Skype. That didn’t make them any less relieved when he came home from Iraq unharmed last October.
“We are very proud of our son and his family for this two deployments in this war on terror,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell said his tour of duty in Iraq during the past two years as commander of the 744th Explosive Ordinance Disposal Battalion was much tamer than his time Afghanistan,. He said he spent his time mostly behind a desk and he missed the more active field work of his first tour.
“They didn’t let me have any fun. Everyone in that field lies to blow something up now and again,” he said.
What Mitchell describes as a “mature” theater of operations, Iraq was typified by what he called “comparatively luxurious accommodations” with McDonalds and Baskin-Robbins. His Baghdad base frequently came under fire at night, and the members of his command always carried their weapons when they went off base.
“Both conflicts are very different. We’re trying to let the Iraqis do as much as they can,” he said.
Between his tours of duty overseas, Mitchell’s seen duty in a series of domestic postings, from Seattle to Maryland and Florida.
“I’ve been fortunate,” he said.
From his current vantage point, stationed upstate in Glenville, NY, Mitchell said our mission in Iraq is virtually complete.
“I think we set them up as good as we can. We can’t drive the train to its final destination. We can’t set up a little America in Iraq,” he said. “We have to let them do their thing.”
