It’s hard for Scott Gatto to explain why he started Reunite The Fight without talking about the war.
From a young recruit who joked about how his Marine Corps blues would help him pick up chicks to a seasoned warrior responsible for hundreds of lives and missions that would turn the tide of the war in Iraq to his transition as a civilian returning home and questioning why he lived when so many others died.
It’s this journey that led him to start Reunite The Fight.
The nonprofit organization based in St. Clair County, brings members of the military from around the country together by providing retreats, resources and services to help them cope with the everlasting effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), survivor’s guilt and other physical and mental health disabilities while decreasing the number of Veteran suicides.
“We’ve been around for seven years,” said Gatto, while sitting outside the Selfridge Military Air Museum in Harrison Township surrounded by historic aircraft that served the generation of soldiers before him.
Gatto was born in Mount Clemens but grew up in Warren where his father worked as a firefighter. He was an active teenager who played football for the Patriots of Cousino High School. While his performance as a defensive end and linebacker attracted the attention of several Division II colleges he was never offered a full-ride scholarship. After graduating in 2000 he gave college a shot but his passion for action and adventure eventually led him to the United States Army recruiting office.
“I wanted to be a ranger but my recruiter was pushing me to be a truck driver,” Gatto said.
So, he left and after seeing that neither the Air Force or Navy would be a good fit decided on the Marines.
“When I saw the Marine recruiter coming out of the office in his dress blues I knew that I had found my branch,” said Gatto, who is married and has three children. “I just felt that life was calling me to do something greater.”
He joined in March of 2001.
After completing basic training he was given a 10-day leave to spend time with his family and enjoy what was a beautiful fall happening in Michigan. Then he boarded a plane at Detroit Metropolitan Airport headed for Marine Corps Base Hawaii and while he was a soldier heading off to an unknown destination the world was at peace and he anticipated an active but comfortable existence as a new recruit.
He arrived on the base the day before 9/11.
When he and the other boots — as new recruits are called — arrived there on Sept. 10 at 12:30 p.m. they were told to press their uniforms and be ready for duty at 0500 hours. But instead of reveille waking them up it was boots charging down the hall and the sound of a Marine yelling that they were going to war that shook them out of bed.
“My first thought was that they were just messing with us like they did in boot camp,” Gatto said.
Even Marines walking with full battle gear on the rooftops overlooking the base did not convince Gatto peacetime was over and that the country was under attack.
It wasn’t until he spoke to his mother, who was worried and managed to get a call through to the base, that he learned the truth about the terrorist attacks on American soil and it all hit home. “Holy s—. I am 19-years-old and I’m going to war,” Gatto said.
What was supposed to be one tour of duty then became years of back-to-back deployments overseas in India, Pakistan, Japan, Iraq and Afghanistan. He and members of his unit fought enemy combatants, who saw nothing of using women and children as suicide bombers, and with little to no leave steadily through 2006.
In the midst of it all Gatto rose through the ranks and years of extensive training to become a leader that the Marines counted on for special assignments.
“The third deployment was the worst and kind of why I started Reunite the Fight,” Gatto said.
After a leave that barely allowed him to process the trauma of his previous deployment, Gatto was ordered to return for extensive field operation training in the jungle involving hand-to-hand combat.
“I never had a chance to catch my breath,” said Gatto, who was among the select few chosen to be a squad leader for a battalion of soldiers he didn’t know and an operation that would require all of the skills he learned and more.
His mission: take the city of Fallujah, Afghanistan away from insurgents.
“It was the stronghold of the war,” Gatto said.
However, before they left for Afghanistan the operatives were told to make a phone call home to their loved ones and were given a day to get over the animosity that existed between them, which they did during an unfriendly game of football.
“There were clothesline tackles, punches, lots of blood, flying teeth. It was the most intense football game I’ve ever played but when it was all over everyone put their attitudes aside,” so they could focus on the job they were asked to do, Gotto said.
That they did but at the cost of many lives.
Despite the mental anguish created in remembering, Gatto described their mission in Fallujah, which he compared to the Normandy invasion on Omaha Beach depicted in ‘Private Ryan.’
Gatto’s Army, like that of June 1944, incurred major losses against the artillery and mortar fire of the heavily fortified insurgents.
At one point Gatto and two squads entered a building in order to reach the roof and take out a sniper. Normally, Gatto took the lead but on this particular day one of his men (Gonzo) positioned himself as point man. Then all hell broke loose. Guns appeared through holes in the walls and grenades showered the group during their face to face combat with insurgents and a 40-minute battle that left four men dead and several others injured. Today it is considered one of the toughest urban combat battles in U.S. military history.
Gatto swore he would never let anyone else take the lead after that but in the end he was the one who came up with the idea of using a bulldozer to take out the insurgents. He was also the one who pulled Gonzo and another Marine out of the rubble and on to a stretcher.
After that the Marines turned the city over to the Army and the people of Fallujah.
“I felt terrible. I didn’t know how to process it. You feel good that you completed your mission and walked out alive but as a leader you feel guilty about the losses,” Gatto said.
Listening to Gatto share his experience one would think that was the end but after they completed their mission he and his squad were asked to provide security for Afghanistan’s first free election. On the way to their assignment one of their helicopters crashed killing 31 Marines. Gotta was not on board but 18 of his men were.
He was then given a permanent leave after serving from 2001 to 2004 but shortly after his transition to civilian life, including a job interview in which a human resource person actually saying he saw no experience in management on his resume (obviously not accepting the leadership of hundreds of men and women engaged in a strategic operation as management) he re-enlisted for six more years.
He’s not alone in his frustrations.
Returning to civilian life poses challenges for the men and women who have served in the armed forces, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of 1,853 veterans. While more than seven-in-ten veterans, 72% report they had an easy time readjusting to civilian life, 27% say re-entry was difficult for them— a proportion that swells to 44% among veterans who served in the ten years since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
This time when Gatto left the military with all of the experience that comes with being a leader such as self-sufficiency, collaboration and project management but also with a bachelor’s degree in medical management so there was no arguing his qualifications.
He also left with post-traumatic stress disorder.
One that he saw and heard about from others including a friend and Marine Corpsman who died by suicide.
What helped Gatto was being outdoors.
“This brought me peace,” said Gatto, who now provides that to other soldiers through fishing, hunting and other trips organized through Reunite the Fight.
“The trip was unbelievably amazing,” said Justin Perez of Chesterfield Township who is among the veterans who have benefitted from RTF. “The hunting was terrible but it was great to be surrounded by people who think the same way as you.
“They gave me an outlet to just kind of be myself again. It’s also a support network to help you navigate the VA or translate your job skills as a civilian,” Perez said of Reunite the Fight.
“From what I’ve heard he was destined to start this group,” said Ron Gauthier, a volunteer working to raise awareness and donations for the nonprofit for Veterans. “There were so many times where he could have lost his life but the good Lord saved him for something bigger than himself.”
For more information visit reunitethefight.org/default.asp
FYI
Reunite the Fight will be hosting a gala fundraiser at Cherry Creek Golf Club.
WHEN: Dec. 1 at 6 p.m.
TICKETS: $250 per person and includes a seven-course gourmet meal, bar and live entertainment. NOTE: A popular country artist is expected to perform but has not been confirmed.
Sponsorships between $1,500 and $10,000 are still available. All proceeds raised will go to Reunite the Fight’s programming for Veterans.
Cherry Creek Golf Club is at 5200 Cherry Creek Dr., Shelby Township
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