By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com

Photo courtesy of Larry Kerwood.

Larry Kerwood is a fine exemplar of “practice makes perfect.” Or, at the very least, “practice makes effective.” After enlisting in the National Guard in 1982, the Warminster-born, William Tennent High School grad spent roughly 20 years serving in a handful of infantry units and bouncing around to various army bases along the East Coast. During his regular Guard duty (which typically consists of one weekend per month and two weeks per year), Kerwood frequently trained with active duty units at Fort Indian Town Gap in Lebanon, Pa., and engaged in what he calls “Army hand-me-down stuff” like running training modules with limited resources. While climbing the ranks from his initial status as an E1 private, Kerwood participated in his fair share of flood, hurricane, and snow storm relief efforts, but never saw any real military action. That is, until Sept. 11 arrived and changed the world.

“For the first 20 years of my military career, it was like practice,” Kerwood, 45, says. “Then, after 2001, I was ready for the big game. My superiors had always tried to instill in me how important my training was, but (Sept. 11) was when I truly realized it had been for a reason and that it was time to put it to use.”

In 2002, Kerwood, who'd been busy conducting the training programs designed by his commander, was put on active duty in Philadelphia, assigned to run a family assistance center for soon-to-be-deployed soldiers and their loved ones. For two years, he helped to support troops headed for Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, while also providing their spouses, significant others and children with comfort and counsel. Kerwood says that during his stay, the center offered assistance to families dealing with anything from financial hardships to relationship issues, and also helped soldiers find or reclaim jobs upon returning to the U.S.

“Any problem you could think of, really – we were there to help,” Kerwood says.

That desire to help would soon become a running theme of Kerwood's military service. In 2004, an opportunity arose for Kerwood to go to Afghanistan. He seized it and volunteered. By that time, he'd become the superior to other troops and enlistees, and his lack of overseas field experience wasn't sitting right with him.

“I thought, 'it's my turn to go,'” Kerwood says. “If I'm leading troops, I should have the same experience in the combat zone. I planned on staying (in the service), and I couldn't be a leader without leading from the front.”

Kerwood's mission landed him in an Embedded Tactical Training (ETT) team, a small group of soldiers who were charged with training members of the primitive Afghan National Army on how to effectively combat a common enemy: the Taliban. Only in its second year of existence at the time, the ETT program required that the American soldiers live among the Afghanis in remote, dangerous places like the Herat Province and Kandahar, both of which Kerwood inhabited. There was no military base. No sanitary conditions. No runnning water. The only things the Army gave to Kerwood and company were M-16 ammunition and money to purchase food, fuel and other supplies.

“The Army told us, 'as far as you're concerned, you're part of the Afghan army now,” Kerwood says.

Supporting themselves and living in mud huts, Kerwood and his fellow soldiers – including two interpreters – began teaching the Afghanis hygiene, discipline, marching, weapons usage, you name it. Kerwood says he was mainly the mentor for the local military's Command Sgt. Major, and as he and his men moved from unit to unit, he also worked with the the army's battalion commander, medical officer and supply officer.

One of Kerwood's first responsibilities after arriving in Afghanistan was to help break up a tank battle between two warlord groups, who were successfully appeased. He also trained the Afghan soldiers on how to conduct weapons searches, find smuggling routes, raid villages and look for Taliban terrorists. He'd then accompany the soldiers on their missions as an advisor. In addition, Kerwood and his ETT team members presided over weapons collection sites, where “acres” of found and surrendered guns and ammo would be gathered to be destroyed.

Kerwood says that by the end of the year he spent in Afghanistan, he saw a huge improvement in the Afghan army.

“When we got there, they didn't want to wear their uniforms,” Kerwood says of the Afghan soldiers. “When we left, they were proud to wear them. We kept increasing their abilities to conduct themselves as soldiers within a unit, and then a unit within an army. A lot of them joined to see change because they hated the Taliban. This was their way to change something. We felt as though our mission had been accomplished.”

Kerwood's tour ended in late July of 2005. He came home, and not long after, as his 25th year with the military was approaching, he retired. He still follows the progress of the army training in Afghanistan, as other ETT team members have followed in his footsteps. He's able to devote more time to his job as a medical researcher with Bristol Myers-Squibb in Lawrenceville, where he's been employed for the last 18 years. He's able to see more of his wife, Sandra, to whom he's been married for 24 years. The couple has two sons, Andrew and Sam, who are both off at college.

Throughout his time in the military, Kerwood was awarded a Combat Infantryman Badge, a Bronze Star (for a rocket attack rescue), Army Commendation with Valor, a Meritorious Service Medal, an Afghan Campaign Medal, a Global War on Terrorism Medal, a Good Conduct Medal and a Humanitarian Service Medal, which was earned for his volunteer involvement with a Hurricane Katrina relief operation in a city just north of New Orleans.

Shortly after retiring, Kerwood says he considered returning to active duty, and then, he reconsidered.

“I thought about re-enlisting,” he says, “but I also thought, 'I like being home.'”