BODSeanessey                             45 Inches

By Barbara O’Dowd                       1600 words

(805) 565-3344

 

Features editor for The Channels newspaper in Santa Barbara

 



In the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks, what most people remember are the 

stories of heroes. Heroes who worked to bring people out of the crumbling 

towers, and to assist the injured and terrified on the ground. Heroes who made cell 

phone calls home, sending a last good-bye to their loved ones while trying to 

stop the hijackers from turning the airplanes into missiles. And there are the 

other heroes, who left home without looking back, sent to hunt down 

terrorists in the barren hills of Afghanistan and Iraq.



While the war seems far away to some, some have never felt it so close. These 

are the families and friends of our troops.



21 year-old Specialist Seanessey O’Dowd, of the 82nd Airborne, has one such 

family.



Last August, they sat around a portable DVD player, nestled in a tiny chalet 

in the Alps of Eastern France, watching a slide show of images Seanessey had 

recorded on a digital camera while on his tour of duty in Afghanistan. The six 

hour slide show depicted scenes that warmed and chilled their hearts by turn. 

He showed pictures of the troops teaching local boys to play soccer, building 

schools, and feeding locals. One of the discs contained nothing but 

photographs of the dead or injured. Another was a sort of music video they had made, 

with photographs of Taliban fighters intermingled with firefights, to the sounds 

of Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.



"The hardest thing," he said, "was giving a command. When you send someone 

out there to do a job, and that person gets hurt, or killed. I'm responsible 

for that."



In November of 2002, Seanessey-Franck O’Dowd was deployed with his unit to 

Afghanistan. The trip was to be his first combat mission since his enlistment, 

and he and his battle buddies were ready. 

Trained first in Ft. Benning, Georgia and then in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, 

and now a member of the 82nd Airborne, 2nd Battalion of the 504 Parachute I

nfantry Regiment, Alpha Company. Seanessey was ready for a fight. 

As a child, Seanessey had always been interested in joining the Army. Born in 

France, to a French mother and American father, he shortly moved to 

Montecito. He attended Montecito Union, Santa Barbara Junior High, and Dos Pueblos, 

finally moving on to Bishop Garcia Diego High School. 



During his senior year in high school he entered the Army’s Delayed Entry 

Program, which allowed him to train and ready himself for the military career he 

was impatient to start. He also worked for the Santa Barbara Trust for 

Historic Preservation as a junior docent, a program he helped create. He joined the 

"Soldados," a group of men who recreate California history in a living history 

setting by donning the uniforms of early Spanish soldiers to interpret Santa 

Barbara's past By his 18th birthday, Seanessey was an enlisted man in the US 

Army.



And by November of 2002, he was eager to get into action and use the training 

he had accumulated.



For several weeks after his deployment, he had no way of communicating with 

his family. He and his Fellow members of the Alpha Company embarked on missions 

to hunt down Taliban remnants, Al-Qaeda cells operating out of a complex 

labyrinths of caves in the Afghan Mountains, and even searching for Osama Bin 

Laden himself.



Eventually, Seanessey began making regular phone calls by satellite phone 

when he was on base or in a safe house. He called his family in Montecito and his 

girlfriend, a student at Chico State. He could never share information about 

the nature of his missions, but every week, members of his family would 

nonetheless wait patiently by the phone in hopes of a sign that he was still alive 

and well. 



Thanksgiving came and went. By Christmas, the boys were feeling neglected and 

miserable. Lonely calls punctuated by lengthy letters evoked harsh conditions 

and homesickness. But there was always something in his voice to let them 

know that he was still excited, still happy to do his job.



A letter dated February of 2003 began, like every other letter:

" Hi! How is everyone? Well, I'm still alive."  He would then continue, 

"I made it through ‘Operation Mongoose.’ The last two weeks have been insane.

I don't even know where to start."



His letters often ended simply, "Anyways I will be moving out to do another 

mission in 48 hours so it might be a few days before I can write again.  Love 

you all tons."  A few days usually turned into a few silent weeks. 



The letters were sometimes hopeful, ending with: "Only three months left till 

I get home," and sometimes encouraging: "I'm going to bed now but I love you 

all. I am happy to have the opportunity to strike a blow for freedom."

And so it went. As everyone "back home" continued with work and school, he 

continued a routine that was strangely, just doing his job.



In a phone call in April, when the media was covering the war in Iraq, he 

described how he felt abandoned. 



"All we hear about is Iraq," he said. "Does anyone even remember we are 

here? I feel like the Italian soldiers in that movie, Mediterraneo."

Then came the morning of May 6. A six a.m. phone call came in to his quiet 

home on Butterfly Lane that is every soldier’s family’s nightmare. His father, 

Patrick, picked up the phone.



"Seanessey has been injured by land mine," Patrick immediately wrote that 

morning in a frantic and sinister email to members of the family. 

There was nothing left to do but sit, wait, and pray. By 12:45 his father had 

been able to contact the Red Cross and members of the military at Fort Bragg, 

desperately trying to get news of his son. Members of Calvary Chapel Santa 

Barbara were at work praying and trying to find missionaries in Afghanistan who 

could get close to Seanessey’s unit and ask questions about where he was.

Then, in the afternoon, Seanessey himself called. He spoke with his Dad in a 

small, heavy voice laden with morphine.



"I feel great," he mumbled, "No problem." And then he hung up. 

His family feared the worst. A heavily drugged casualty suffering from an 

encounter with an anti tank mine could, in theory, be missing limbs or even 

dying, and he wouldn't know it.



 It was only two days later that the family was able to piece together the 

story, with the help of the army and 82nd airborne families at Fort Bragg.

Seanessey's unit was there to provide protection and support for a convoy of 

vehicles in humvees loaded with civil affairs specialists out to construct a 

school.



A detonation occurred, a remote controlled antitank mine, which exploded with 

a force equal to about 500 lbs of TNT. 

Seanessey was the only casualty out of the men who were inside the two 

humvees which were taken out by the mine. They found themselves in an ambush and 

were taking heavy fire.



 After Somalia, troops are told never to leave without Kevlar helmets and 

protection that prevents serious injuries if used properly. That armor helped to 

protect Seanessey’s body from an explosion that could easily have killed him. 

He was finally found inside the least damaged humvee with his flak jacket 

ripped to shreds. He was out cold. 



Alpha company, First Sergeant Carobello called in a helicopter for medical 

evacuation and rode in the helicopter with Seanessey to a desert medical tent 

south of Kandahar.  



He was given morphine along the way. It was from there that he called his 

father just four hours after the fight.



He emerged from the hospital with only the loss of hearing in his right ear, 

along with shrapnel in his arms and legs. He also had some internal bleeding 

in his stomach.



The next day, His father received a direct call from the Commander in 

Kandahar to update the family on Seanessey’s progress.

He said, "Seanessey is one of the best paratroopers I've got. Thanks for 

letting us have him."



Unfortunately, Seanessey was never able to recover the hearing in his right 

ear, but he was honored with a Purple Heart, and went back to work with his 

team, despite being offered medical evacuation to Germany.



During Operation Enduring Freedom, Seanessey was also involved in an 

engagement in Shkin, when Taliban forces killed two paratroopers. The Taliban forces 

were able to retreat across the border into Pakistan where they were protected 

by tribesmen, and American troops were unable to follow when refused entry by 

Pakastani border guards



He finally returned to American Soil in the end of July, but was unable to 

come out to California to see his family and friends. Instead he spent his 

two-week leave at the beginning of August in Marseille, France, where his family 

and girlfriend, Jessica Banister, were waiting eagerly to see him. 



Upon his return to North Carolina, he was informed by the army that his unit 

would be redeployed in ninety days--this time to Iraq.



Seanessey was told he didn't need to go with his troops because of his loss 

of hearing, and would be allowed to stay on base and work, but he refused, 

deciding once again that he wanted to be with his army family who needed him.

His platoon had lost six soldiers and were short handed. 

Outside his home in Montecito, his family hangs a red and white flag with a 

star, a symbol to the world that their son and brother is away fighting a war 

because he still believes in heroes.