Libby soldier wounded by Afghanistan bomb blast

LIBBY — Montana Army National Guard Spc. Steve Beaty was home visiting his family in Libby over the Thanksgiving holiday, just five weeks after being wounded in a suicide attack in Afghanistan while part of a security detail assigned to protect a visiting colonel. 

Beaty, 30, the son of Mike and Deb Beaty of Libby, is a member of the 484th Military Police Company of Billings. He was recently awarded the Purple Heart in acknowledgment of his being wounded in the line of service.

Beaty’s team had just landed by helicopter at a remote U.S. military outpost south of Kandahar when the attack occurred the morning of Oct. 13. He was part of a detail of 14 soldiers assigned to protect a U.S. Army colonel touring the base and to see the safe unloading of crucial supplies when he became suspicious of an Afghan citizen who had infiltrated the group.

Beaty is trained to recognize irregularities that might indicate terrorists among the troops. It’s part of his police training as he protects military officers.

“I was just about to engage him,” Beaty said of the terrorist who was dressed in an Afghan military uniform. “It was about 90 degrees, and this guy had a coat on. He should never have gotten this close.

“He was about 12 feet away, about 15 feet from my colonel. I was going to make sure he wasn’t going to take another step,” Beaty recalled.

The terrorist presumably saw that his window of opportunity was closing and he blew himself up about 12 feet from Beaty using a homemade explosive device packed with ball bearings. 

The dead included a U.S. soldier and an FBI agent who was among the entourage training members of the Nationalized Defense Security agency, the Afghan equivalent of the FBI. 

The terrorist was just one of a growing number of Taliban infiltrators who have managed to work their way among allied troops in Afghanistan as supposed security forces, but then use their positions of trust to take a terrible toll among Western soldiers.

Immediately after the explosion, a medic treated Beaty and told him the blood and tissue that covered him was not his own, then dashed off to attend to another victim of the blast.

In addition to the two people killed, the colonel was wounded by shrapnel.

The medic “came up and told me, ‘You’ll be OK. This is not any of your blood,’” Beaty recalled.

Whether that was an attempt at black humor or just a misdiagnosis of the situation is unclear, but in fact Beaty had been cut up badly by shrapnel. The explosion knocked Beaty to the ground, wounding him severely as five of the ball-bearings struck him, even penetrating his body armor. 

“I got shrapnel in my right side. Another piece hit my upper thigh, two hit me in the foot and broke two bones. Another piece entered my chest and broke my sternum,” Beaty said. 

Immediately after the blast, Beaty tried to get to his feet and quickly fell.

“I tried to get up, take a step and collapsed,” Beaty said. “I looked at my foot, and thought, ‘It can’t be that bad.’”

But it was.

The shrapnel in his chest had just missed his heart. It’s still there. While doctors have removed the other pieces of metal, they opted to leave the piece near his heart.

Beaty said he is extremely grateful for the medical care he received after being wounded.

“It was amazing. Fifteen minutes after the medic first saw me, I was on my way back to KAF [Kandahar Air Field],” Beaty said. “They have some of the best doctors in the world there. They see everything: Gunshots, knife wounds to multiple [injuries].”

He was later transferred to Germany to be stabilized before returning to Fort Lewis, Wash., where he had surgery to set the bones in his foot and has had plenty of time to think about his experiences in Afghanistan.

“I would say 90 percent of Afghans are thankful we are there,” he said. “They see the roads we’re building, the schools we’re building, the safe drinking water we’re providing. It’s that 10 percent who are fighting us, who demean women, who don’t want to see positive change.”

Beaty said in his four-plus months in Afghanistan, the generosity of the Afghan people has amazed him.

“We’ve been to feasts, meals they put out for us. In one setting, they provided more food for us in a day than they eat in a whole month.”

The time with family in Libby this Thanksgiving has also helped Beaty reflect on family and his career.

“I joined to get law-enforcement experience,” Beaty said. “In February, I’ll have four years, two more years in my contract. I don’t regret a thing. I had a goal to be a police officer. I absolutely have no regrets, no bad feelings whatsoever. It’s been one of the best decisions I have ever made. I now have structure in my life. I’ve learned to be a team player and developed leadership skills. It’s been wonderful, and I joined for a purpose, to get into law enforcement.”

On the day after Thanksgiving, there still was an air of gratefulness in the Beaty home. 

Their son and uncle was home safe. Far from battle.

For Mike Beaty, Steve’s father, his son’s time in Afghanistan was punctuated with prayer.

“You pray and hope he’ll be OK,” Mike said. “He’s always been our Superman, but I think he’s figured out he’s not 10 feet tall.”

“When we heard what his duties would be — protecting officers — we were concerned, but like I said he’s always been there to help people. Like I said, our Superman. When he was in high school, he saved a little girl who fell from the bleachers.”

Deb Beaty, Steve’s stepmother, said she, too, had put her concerns in prayer. She and Steve’s nieces and nephew prayed for him each night. 

“While he was over there, their prayers were to keep him safe. After he came back, even wounded, it was thanks for bringing him back safely.”

Beaty is grateful for all the support.

“Everyone has just been great,” Beaty said. “Even the commanders came to see me in my hospital room. Really terrific.”

On Monday, Beaty left his parents’ home to head back to Fort Lewis. On Thursday, about six weeks after the attack, he underwent surgery to remove the pins in his foot that have aided the healing process.