Scarsdale's Alex Cohen Receives the Bronze Star

“Memorial Day 2010 was not a good day for me,” remembers Sgt. Cohen. That day he got a speeding ticket in Arlington, VA. “The road was empty at the time, so I was going a little faster than usual and not really paying attention to my speed,” he admitted. “I remember joking with the officer who pulled me over that “perhaps a veteran could get a break on Memorial Day. He didn’t even flinch. We spoke for a few minutes, during which the officer revealed that he’d never served in the military and it didn’t matter to him what day it was, who I was, or where I was going. (I was on my way to help a friend, also a fellow veteran, and his wife move into their new house.)”

Three days later Sgt. Cohen received mobilization orders for deployment to Afghanistan, ordering him to report to Fort Benning, Georgia, in mid July, about sixty days away at the time. He recalled, “My mom was the first person to find out, since the Army mailed a thick envelope to the house in New York. She called me in Virginia and I told her to open it. The rest is history.” He took a leave of absence from his job with a defense contractor in Virginia and prepared for the year-long deployment.

Cohen grew up in Scarsdale and graduated from SHS in 2002. He joined the Army Reserve in 2003 and was called to active duty in Iraq from October 2005 to September 2006. “I learned a lot during those early days in Iraq in 2005. I had just turned 21 and while most of my friends were discovering bars at college, I found myself going on daily foot patrols, convoys and raids to interdict terrorists,” says Cohen. To this day, Cohen feels his initial experience in Iraq was the best experience of his life because it was “eye opening.” “I didn’t realize that the majority of the world lives life with a certain mentality and in some of the most austere conditions. Just having potable water and electricity for a few hours a day was a luxury in Iraq for most local citizens. Daily survival was a challenge!”

He recalls, “I was a 21 year old soldier and I often found myself meeting with 60 year-old tribal leaders, as part of my job. I can only imagine what they thought of me.” He still laughs when he thinks about offers from a few of the tribal leaders to marry their daughters and take them back to America. To avoid awkward moments he use to say he was already married and that one wife was enough. This would sometimes result in a chuckle from the tribal elder, who had multiple wives of his own. Other times, the elder would sternly request to see a picture of his “wife.” He would then present a picture of one of his friend’s sisters that he had cropped from a group photo that was sent to him by his friend. “To this day, I don’t think she knows how useful her photo was to me in Iraq,” he laughs. “One day I will have to tell her.”

Fast forward to late July 2010. Having been recalled to deploy as an individual augmentee, Cohen did not have the benefit of deploying with a unit of other soldiers whom he knew. He landed in Bagram, a huge US military hub in Northern Afghanistan, and had to make his way to Kabul, about 60 miles away, on his own initiative. “I thought travel in Iraq was difficult; I soon learned that in Afghanistan it was much harder. “

“The deployment was a learning experience from day one and I did my best to accomplish any mission that was assigned to me. I was able to build off my prior deployments and hit the ground running, which allowed me to prove myself to my commander as a competent leader, particularly outside the wire, leading missions and convoys, a task that few people wanted or envied. “ Cohen utilized a common sense approach to mission planning and often relied on unorthodox methods to throw off potential enemies. He found that there was no way to distinguish between ordinary citizens and Taliban members until an attack was launched.

Occasionally, Cohen was charged with escorting U.S. military generals to meetings and other liaison events. “We conducted these operations with as low a profile as possible, using up-armored civilian vehicles, wearing civilian clothes and taking the liberty of not shaving for a days to develop an “Afghan” stubble.” Cohen soon developed a reputation as a reliable security team leader and generals began to request him to provide security for their meetings and engagements. “Although these missions sometimes got in the way of my primary duties, there was no way my commander, a Colonel, could turn down a General’s request. Overtime, the Generals gave my commander a lot of praise for having a squared away team under his command.” Cohen quickly learned that if you make your leaders look good, you can never go wrong.”

Driving in Kabul, Afghanistan is not for the weak at heart, but having grown up driving in New York the learning curve wasn’t as steep. The hard part was learning and memorizing the myriad of streets and alleyways that composed the city. There are no street signs in Kabul, so the only thing Cohen had to go off of were military maps, which gave the major street route names. Although about seventy percent of the streets were not assigned a route, “we still had to learn them by driving them and quite a few times we ended up at the end of one way streets. We had to cut through extremely narrow alleyways where I was convinced we were going to get stuck and have to abandon the vehicles.” Often times, it was just Cohen and one other team member travelling in a single up-armored land cruiser. He always made contingency plans in case he needed to leave a truck and make his way back to base on foot. He admits, “It would not have been a good situation and fortunately it never happened.”

According to Cohen, his old commander in Iraq said, “ it’s better to be lucky than good, sometimes.” Luck was definitely on his side quite a few times.

In June 2011, SGT Cohen was presented with the Bronze Star Medal for “exceptionally meritorious service” during this deployment. Cohen will be in Afghanistan until mid-July and when he returns home he plans to take some time off to consider what to do next.

The Person of the Week Column is sponsored by Johnny Rockets, Home of the Original Hamburger, recently opened for breakfast, lunch and dinner at 777 White Plains Road in Scarsdale.