Veterans spotlight

That attitude toward rank did not begin with a nickname among fellow veterans. Long before anyone thought to demote Captain Kennedy to Third Lieutenant, Robert had already learned that service had less to do with what was pinned to a uniform than with what a person was willing to do for someone else.

Military service was hardly unfamiliar territory in the
Kennedy family. Robert’s father served in the Air Force during the Korean War
era, stationed primarily in England. Three uncles served in the Merchant
Marines, two others in the Army, and an aunt served in the Air Force. One of
Robert’s sisters would also serve, becoming an Air Force nurse and reaching the
rank of Captain. Robert had considered joining as far back as high school and
even spoke with a recruiter, but he never quite committed.

His route into the Army took a few turns first. Robert worked, attended Columbia State and earned a two-year degree. Later, a friend called to say he was going to Murfreesboro to get into Army ROTC at Middle Tennessee State University and asked whether Robert had thought about going. Robert needed to return to school anyway, so he went along to see where it led.

There was no lifelong plan to become a career Army officer. Robert jokes that he was a little older by then and did not have quite as much of the “hooah” factor as some of the younger cadets. Army ROTC simply fit.

“It just happened,” he recalled. “It just kind of fit.”

Before the desert, there was still the matter of figuring out exactly what kind of Army officer Robert Kennedy was going to be.

Early on, Robert had leaned toward Air Defense Artillery. During Cadet Troop Leadership Training at Fort Hood, Texas, he got an early taste of Army life and Texas heat that he remembers climbing well past 100 degrees. His path eventually took him instead to Military Intelligence training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where he spent roughly six months before returning to Tennessee.

Robert initially held an intelligence slot with a Military Police unit in Nashville. As the Army downsized, however, he moved to the company side and picked up Military Police as a second specialty. His unit specialized in enemy prisoner-of-war operations, work that had seemed almost theoretical at the time.

“We hadn’t had prisoners really since Korea,” Robert recalled.

The running joke was that if their unit ever got called up, the Army would be somewhere around calling the women and children next.

Then came 1990, and the joke stopped being theoretical.

Even the portable toilets became part of the problem. After setting them up, the unit noticed that some of the prisoners would not use them. They eventually realized the toilets were facing Mecca. So they moved them.

Once the prisoners began arriving, the days became a blur. Robert remembers working 18-to-20-hour shifts and getting around four hours of sleep a night. His shift ran from midnight until noon. Temperatures could fall to around 30 degrees at night and climb toward 120 during the day, and even sleep often came in pieces between shifts, sandstorms and whatever else the desert decided to provide.

Care packages from home became one of the small comforts. Robert built a shelf where food and other items could be placed, essentially creating a small store where people could find something they wanted.

Unfortunately, everybody apparently wanted Robert to have Spam.

Eventually a soldier named Yeary came looking for something from the shelf. Robert told him he could take one item, but there was a condition: he had to take all the Spam.

The deal was accepted.

Robert promptly wrote home.

“Stop sending Spam!”

His sister sent Junior Mints, which proved only slightly more compatible with Saudi Arabia. They arrived melted together, so Robert ate them with a spoon.

“It’s the little stuff,” Robert said.

He believes those small comforts, along with the laughter and time spent together, helped keep people sane in a bad situation.

But the days also carried responsibility.

One night around two in the morning, Robert heard roughly seven rounds fired from an M60 in one of the guard towers. National Guard units under their operational control manned the towers while Robert’s unit handled the prisoners. Weapons were not allowed inside the enclosure.

Robert ran roughly 200 yards through the sand toward the tower.

The private who came down was shaking, nervous and nearly crying.

Robert asked what happened.

“I was cleaning my weapon, sir.”

Robert asked whether he had moved the position of the M60. The private said no. Robert climbed into the tower himself and looked to see where the rounds had gone.

From what he could tell, they had gone over everything.

The private’s commander was a captain. Robert was still a first lieutenant. Although the National Guard unit was under Robert’s unit’s operational control, Robert knew he had to be careful about how he handled the situation.

He called for the captain and told him to handle it as he saw fit. If there was any blowback from the incident, Robert would make his own report.

Nothing more came of it.

“The guy was young,” Robert said. “I just hate to could have ended his career right there.”

But war still came close enough to leave images behind.

There were burning oil fields and destruction in Kuwait, wounded prisoners, and things Robert saw that did not belong in any training exercise. There was also the knowledge that the Scud intercepted above his building had not been an empty threat. Another Scud attack during the war killed American troops.

The humor and seriousness lived beside each other. Perhaps they had to.

Looking back, Robert talks less about tactics than about people. He learned the value of telling people what you know, admitting what you do not know and keeping them informed rather than allowing uncertainty to take over.

He also learned to listen to experienced NCOs, especially the ones who could teach without making every lesson miserable. Robert came to believe that an officer could be responsible for soldiers without constantly reminding them who wore the bars.

“You can do your job and not make it painful for everybody.”

And somewhere in all of it, Robert learned something about integrity.

Under enough pressure, Robert said, “the real person comes out.”

He likes to think that through the exhaustion, uncertainty and responsibility, he remained himself.

Eventually the ground war ended, the prisoners stopped arriving, and First Lieutenant Robert Kennedy came home.

Robert began working alongside veterans such as Barry Williams, who had experience building wheelchair ramps for people in the community. Sometimes a veteran needed a ramp immediately, while help through the Department of Veterans Affairs might take months. For someone already confined inside a home, that was too long to wait.

One project took Robert, Barry, former Post Commander Hundley and Stan to the home of a man who used a wheelchair. His wife could leave the house. He could not. Steps stood between his wheelchair and the outside world, and his wife could not safely get him over them.

The men built him a ramp. When they finished, the veteran came outside. For the first time in about a year, he could leave his home in his wheelchair without depending on someone to somehow get him over those steps.

He cried, and Robert has not forgotten it. “That just... touched you right there,” he recalled. Then came the thought that stayed with him: “We’re doing a good thing. We need to do this.”

The needs were not always as visible as a set of steps leading from a front door. Sometimes helping meant giving a veteran a ride to Shelbyville or to a medical appointment in Columbia. Sometimes it meant doing work nobody would volunteer for if someone else did not genuinely need it.

On one occasion, Robert and two men from Veterans Outreach helped a veteran move from a badly bedbug-infested apartment. They put on protective suits and gloves, taped their boots and went inside. When it was over, Robert threw his clothes away rather than risk taking anything home. It was not pleasant work, but someone needed help, so they went in.

Robert has also learned that helping someone does not give you control over what happens afterward. He remembers assisting one veteran with money, boots and other needs, only to watch the man get into trouble again. Later, Robert heard that the veteran had entered a program in East Tennessee and was doing well.

“You help them and try not to have expectation,” Robert said. Sometimes you provide what you can and have to let go of the outcome. If you decide to give, then give, hope the person uses the opportunity well, and understand that you may not yet know how the story ends.

Robert’s service reaches beyond veteran organizations as well. Through HopeTown, he participates in a Tuesday morning men’s prayer group and helps prepare meals on Wednesdays for homebound people, a program he says averages around 60 to 65 meals.

Sometimes what a person needs is even simpler: somebody willing to show up.

When asked what keeps him involved, Robert returned to the difference between saying something and doing something.

“It’s not words,” he said. “It’s... actually using actions to show people that you care. You got skin in the game.”

For Robert, that is “where the rubber meets the road.”

Years earlier, Lieutenant Kennedy had learned that leadership sometimes meant working with whatever was available and making something happen because people were depending on him. The circumstances had changed. The uniform was gone and nobody was issuing orders, but somewhere between a pile of lumber, a veteran’s front steps and that first trip down a newly built wheelchair ramp, service had found Robert Kennedy again.

Or perhaps it had never really left.