FORT HOOD, Texas — Sgt. 1st Class Randall Alford walked through the halls of the Sgt. Russell Collier Health Clinic on Tuesday looking through the building’s panoramic windows at the vistas of rolling hills bursting with fall colors.
“It brings tears to my eyes, walking in here and knowing it’s named after Russell,” he said to Lt. Col. Damon Cluck, commander of Arkansas’ 206th Field Artillery Battalion. “Pretty amazing.”
The U.S. Army Medi-cal Department on Tuesday dedicated Fort Hood’s newest medical clinic in honor of Collier, an Arkansas National Guard combat medic from Harrison who died Oct. 3, 2004, in Taji, Iraq, trying to save Sgt. Chris Potts in the middle of a firefight.
Machine-gun fire hit Potts as he maneuvered to get a better look at the enemy’s firing position. Collier dropped his rifle, picked up his medic bag and went over a berm and into a hail of bullets after him. Collier and Potts died together in the field.
For his actions, Collier was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the Army’s second-highest honor, which is awarded for courage and valor in battle.
Collier was a medic with the Arkansas National Guard’s 206th Field Artillery Battalion, 39th Infantry Brigade, which deployed to Iraq in 2004 with Fort Hood’s 1st Cavalry Division. He was one of 33 soldiers the brigade lost in that deployment.
When the division unveiled its black-marble war memorial several years ago, it held the names of each of those 39th soldiers who died during the 2004 deployment. Renaming the West Fort Hood medical clinic in honor of Collier was done without prompting from Arkansas officials. News only reached Arkansas National Guard headquarters a few weeks ago that the newest clinic would be named in his honor, and it came as a surprise.
“What amazes me is there is no one in the Guard that asked for this,” said Maj. Gen. Bill Wofford, Arkansas’ adjutant general. “This is symbolic that we’re probably one Army, more now than we have ever been. It’s leaps and bounds from the way it was when this unit [the 39th Infantry Brigade and 1st Cavalry Division] deployed.”
The clinic was built in 2008 at a cost of $10 million. It serves soldiers and their families, offering the full spectrum of care from pediatrics to general medicine. It has a full-time staff of about 75 doctors, nurses and support staff members. Since it opened, it has treated more than 100,000 patients.
Fort Hood is one of the largest military installations in the world. The 215,000-acre facility is home to more than 65,000 soldiers.
Maj. Kenneth Koyle, deputy chief of the U.S. Army Medical Department’s Center of History and Heritage, said it is “unusual for National Guard soldiers to be memorialized on active-duty installations,” but confirmed that the idea came from Fort Hood’s Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center.
The request moved up through the ranks to the commander of the U.S. Army Medical Command, who ultimately approved it.
“One of the key things [considered] is whether the person’s actions had an impact that will be remembered by the community at the installation,” he said. “Collier’s bravery while deployed with a Fort Hood unit has earned him a place in the Fort Hood memory.”
Maj. Christian Neary of Providence, R.I., was Collier’s company commander. Collier had been working as a medic for the “Rhodies,” Alpha Battery, 103rd Field Artillery of the Rhode Island National Guard that had deployed to help fill the ranks of Arkansas’ 206th on the deployment.
Neary learned about the naming of the clinic a few weeks ago. When contacted by phone and told the news, he said, he found it hard to believe that an active-duty Army post would pick a guardsman to honor with a building.
“This validates the service National Guard units have done in both wars,” Neary said. “We were shooting artillery and patrolling 40 square miles of land around Taji.That was our job, just like the active duty.”
Combined deployments in recent years like that of the 39th and 1st Cavalry Division have brought the active-duty and reserve component units closer together.
Col. Steven Braverman, commander of Fort Hood’s Darnall Army Medical Center, said it reflects the way the Army fights, as one unit.
“I think it reflects a new dynamic between the National Guard and the active duty force,” Koyle said. “We all deploy together and are a unified force more now than ever before. So this is a pretty significant event.”
During Tuesday’s dedication ceremony, Brig. Gen. Joseph Caravalho, commander of the Southern Regional Medical Command, read a note he found by Collier’s name on Fort Hood’s wall of heroes memorial. “I only knew you for exactly 10 months, but I will never forget that fateful day of Oct. 3,” the note read.
A former Arkansas adjutant general, retired Maj. Gen. Ron Chastain, was 39th commander during the 2004 deployment. He told the crowd that “this Arkansan [Collier] and the Rhodies were close, as evidenced today.”
The 103rd and the 39th first met at Fort Hood in 2003 when they began mobilization training. Many of their members hadn’t seen one another for almost five years, since they left Fort Sill, Okla., for home in March 2005.
Alford and Sgt. 1st Class Antonio Mendonca of Bristol, R.I., laughed when they saw each other and hugged. Like the other soldiers around them, they fell into easy conversation as though time hadn’t passed.
“Russell was a part of the family,” Mendonca said. “It was an honor to be included here.”
Nearby, a clear-glass case held three pictures of Collier. An hour later, it would be filled with letters, medals and mementos from soldiers and Collier’s family.
The men who knew Collier best still hold on to bits of memory. Neary said one of his soldiers still had the old medic bag Collier had given him. Kevin Estep, a physician’s assistant assigned to the 206th in the deployment, said soldiers still have all the things from Collier’s memorial service in Iraq. Someday the items will go to Collier’s youngest son, Hunter, he said.
Hunter Collier is 15 now. The glass case held a picture of him as a baby cradled in his father’s arms. He is almost as tall as some of these soldiers now.
Estep took a moment on the clinic lawn and told Hunter, “You know, whenever he was out with the Rhodies, he was always talking about how proud he was of you.”
This was the first time for Collier’s family to meet the Rhodies.
“I’ve been waiting to meet them for a long time,” said Veronica Collier, Sgt. Collier’s widow. “I like that we’ll have that connection with them forever. One person brought so many people together.”
She said it brings her a little comfort to know that her husband’s story will be told through the clinic and the memorial out front. “But it’s still hard,” she said. “I still get emotional.”
It was difficult deciding what mementos to part with to put in the glass case, as the pictures, tokens, medals and letters are all they have left of him, Veronica Collier said.
“This [clinic] doesn’t make their loss better or worse,” Neary said of Potts’ and Collier’s deaths. “But it makes it more in the present” and will ensure their sacrifice is never forgotten.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/24/2010