Army Capt. Christopher Botterbusch, '03, Helped U.S. Troops Stay Wired in Iraq

Many people would undoubtedly greet the prospect of spending a year in Iraq with trepidation. But Army Capt. Christopher Botterbusch, ’03, viewed deployment to Iraq as just part of the job.

Botterbusch attended University of Richmond on a four-year ROTC scholarship. The Army commissioned him as a second lieutenant the day before his college graduation in May 2003, and he began his active-duty service that June.  

After his assignment to the Signal Corps, which operates and maintains the Army’s communication and electronic systems, Botterbusch underwent intensive communications training. He reported to Fort Stewart, near Hinesville, Ga., in January 2004, four months after the 3rd Infantry Division, to which he had been assigned, returned from its first mission to Iraq.  

“From day one of my arrival we [members of the 3rd Infantry Division] were combat focused,” Botterbusch said. “I found out even before I got to my unit that we would have to redeploy to Iraq in a year.”

During the ensuing year, Botterbusch and his fellow soldiers focused on training while transforming their brigade to conform to the Army’s new standards for more flexible and modular units. Botterbusch felt well prepared when he deployed in January 2005 for a one-year tour of duty as a platoon leader supervising 31 soldiers. 

Botterbusch and his soldiers first stopped in Kuwait. “There’s a much lower security concern there,” Botterbusch explained, “so all the freight is shipped to Kuwait and units rehearse their mission.” After two weeks in Kuwait, Botterbusch’s platoon embarked on a two-day convoy to Baghdad, arriving in February. 

The signal platoon set up its communications operation in a military compound that had served as a ministry under Saddam Hussein’s regime. Members of the platoon assumed responsibility for maintaining a communications network to support the Army’s 2nd Brigade with tactical telephone and Internet access.  

Aside from several routers and encryption devices mounted on the back of a Humvee, the platoon housed most of its heat- and sand-sensitive communications equipment in the air-conditioned headquarters. As a result, each member of Botterbusch’s platoon left the relative safety of the military compound only about two dozen times during the year they spent in Iraq.  

“It became almost too comfortable,” Botterbusch said. “A lot of people lost their tactical edge. I struggled as a leader to keep people from thinking they had a Homer Simpson job just hanging out in a room monitoring computers.” 

About midway through his one-year tour of duty in Iraq, Botterbusch received a promotion from platoon leader to executive officer of his company of 72 men and women. His new position required him to focus on issues associated with logistics and sustainment in a broader context than he had as a platoon leader. Botterbusch also assumed command of the company for a month while the regular commander took vacation leave.  

Almost daily communication with family and friends back in the United States via email or telephone helped maintain good morale, Botterbusch said. The vacation leave afforded to anyone serving in Iraq or Afghanistan for a year also offered a pleasant reprieve from life on the base.  

Botterbusch, for example, took a cruise with his wife, Lauren Nardella Botterbusch, W’03. He also returned home to Pennsylvania for a week to serve as best man in a friend’s wedding.  

Sports provided another outlet. “A group of 12 to 18 people in our battalion would play pick-up volleyball on Sunday afternoons, even during 120-degree temps,” Botterbusch said. “It was a good stress reliever and sanity check, and there was, of course, plenty of sand for the court!” 

Botterbusch’s battalion returned to Fort Stewart in January 2006 having suffered only one serious injury and no deaths during its deployment in Iraq. Originally scheduled for redeployment in August 2007, members of the battalion recently learned that the date for their redeployment had been moved up to May to accommodate President Bush’s surge strategy. 

“The soldiers in my battalion are very accepting of deployment,” Botterbusch said. “There’s a degree of predictability in the armed services—you’re going to deploy. I’m really proud of our soldiers and their families. They’re adapting to changes in plans and taking things in stride.” 

This time, however, Botterbusch won’t be deploying with his battalion. He will command the battalion’s rear detachment, and his duties will include training new soldiers and getting them ready for deployment.  

Botterbusch is currently weighing several options for the future: extending his service in order to pursue a full-time graduate school program to which he’s already been accepted and which the Army would fund in full or returning to civilian life and financing his own graduate school education in business or human resources.  

Either way, Botterbusch had no regrets about the time he’s spent in the Army. Some of the lessons he learned as a leadership studies major helped make him a better officer, he said.  

“I think I bring a different approach to looking at problems and how people can work through problems,” Botterbusch said. ““There are a lot of set ways for solving problems in the Army. Sometimes I challenge norms that the Army has drawn because of the way I learned to think at Jepson.”