New Hampshire National Guard - Spring 2013

“I’m nervous,” he said. “I hope that it
doesn’t make her run.”
Does he ever feel like the deployment
is a disruption – from schooling, from the
girlfriend?
“I’d be lying if I told you no.”
But he’s not the complaining type.
“I always look at things with the glass
half full,” he said.
Sam Weber
Running a prison isn’t sexy, but from
2006 to 2007, Sam Weber was one of the
New Hampshire Guardsmen who had to
do it.
“I don’t think there’s many soldiers who
say, ‘Hey, I want to go do detainee ops,’ ”
Weber, 30, said.
He and his fellow soldiers dealt with
riots, arson, assaults and the bizarre pecking
order among Iraqi prisoners at Camp
Cropper, a prison of more than 3,000 in
Baghdad.
But most of the time, it was mind-numbingly
dull. “You work really long hours, and
it’s boring,” Weber, of Dover, said. “But
you have to be alert because they’d try to
escape every once in a while.”
Weber spent a year deployed in Iraq as
an MP responsible for police-type activities.
But growing up, he wanted to be in the
infantry, the all-male division of the Army
devoted to more in-the-field type exercises.
“It’s kind of like being on a sports team,”
he said. “That’s what it feels like, it feels
like you’re playing high school sports all
over again.”
Later this spring, Weber will deploy
for a second time as an MP, this time to
Afghanistan. His mission is likely to include
helping train Afghan nationals in police
and anti-terrorism tactics.
Weber’s parents didn’t serve in the
military, but both his grandfathers did – one
in the Korean War and the other in Europe
in World War II. They didn’t talk a lot
about it during his childhood in Colebrook,
but Weber grew up knowing he’d join
the Army.
He attended the University of New
Hampshire on an ROTC scholarship,
graduated in 2005 and was commissioned
an officer in the Guard.
About a year later, after stints as a Guard
recruiter and a temporary employee at the
post office in Concord, he left for Iraq.
He had been living with his brother and
sister-in-law and had no dependents, so he
didn’t have too much to pack.
“Everything I owned fit in a duffel bag
and one tote,” he said. “I just left it at my
mom’s house.”
When you’re deployed, Weber said, you
sometimes get so busy that you don’t have
time to feel lonesome. He said he has it
easier than some others because he doesn’t
have a wife and kids to worry about. But it
can be hard when you realize your friends
back home are having barbecues, going
to the movies and throwing parties
without you.
“It’s definitely humbling when you’re
like, ‘Wait a minute, they’re fine with me
gone. They’ll survive. The world hasn’t
ended because I’m not around,’ ”
Weber said.
It’s also hard to have no privacy or
alone time during a deployment. Even the
prisoners knew his name.
Capt. Sam Weber, 30, with his niece Bristol, 2, and nephew Kael, 4, at their home in Gilmanton. Capt. Weber is
leading 110 soldiers in the 237th Military Police Company when they deploy in February. It will be his second
deployment.
10
“They have nothing but time,” he said.
“These guys knew all the guards’ first and
last names.
They knew the battalion commanders’
names.”
And they didn’t hesitate to raise hell
now and then. Mixing the silt-like sand in
the prison with chai, they’d make rocks to
chuck at guards. Urine-filled bottles?
They’d toss those. Steal matches to burn
the building down? They tried that, too.
And then there were the full-on assaults.
Soldiers had to adapt to keep things
under control, Weber said.
“They wanted to see if they could sneak
somebody out in the garbage, and so they
found a little guy, killed him and put him out
in the garbage,” Weber said. “The garbage
collectors found him when his arm kind of
fell out of the bag.”
The prison staff started using clear plastic
garbage bags and checking the garbage
more thoroughly, Weber said.
On top of that, he was also responsible
for the welfare of 40 other soldiers whose
problems seemed outside his own frame
of reference.
“I’ve got married guys asking me for
advice on their relationship,” he said.
“I’ve never been married, so there you’ve
got to be prepared to deal with stuff or
offer advice on stuff maybe you haven’t
experienced.”
When he finally returned in 2007, he
just relaxed at first.
Eventually, he took a full-time but
temporary position with the Guard to fill
in for an employee who had deployed. He
has had a few similar positions since.
“I’ve managed to make a career out of
not having a permanent job with the
National Guard,” he said.
Even if he eventually gets “a big-boy job
someday,” he’d like to stay in the Guard.
When he deploys to Afghanistan in the
spring, he’ll be a company commander in
charge of 110 soldiers.
His soldiers will help train Afghan police,
which will require a lot more patrols
outside a base. Things are different on the
home front this time, too. Now he has an
apartment to vacate, furniture to store.
A niece and nephew he dotes on. And a
girlfriend. He says they haven’t decided
what to do when he’s gone.
Weber said this deployment is a good
opportunity for him and that he didn’t
really hesitate about it.
“New Hampshire soldiers are deploying,
so how could you really say no?” he said.
“What is more important than doing
that?”
Spring 2013 / New Hampshire National Guard Magazine