Jonathan Gremminger

Local Marine spent months training Afghan police.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com


Local Marine Jonathan Gremminger is very glad to be home, and to once again be able to enjoy “creature comforts” like a soft mattress and running water. For the five months prior to Gremminger’s mid-September return to the U.S. he was in a place that had no such comforts. The Holland resident was stationed in an especially desolate region of Afghanistan, training members of the Afghan police and helping to restore the region from a war-ravaged state. Gremminger says he got much personal growth and gratification from the experience, and explains that military service is in his blood.

Gremminger was born on July 28, 1987 at the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune to mother Stacy and father Eric, a Marine himself who was serving at the time. Gremminger grew up in Holland, along with brothers Eric and Frank. The latter, Gremminger says, is currently in the Navy, aboard a ship headed for Pakistan.

“My father and brother definitely had an influence on me,” Gremminger says in regard to his reasons for enlisting. “I thought I should definitely do at least one tour and do my part.”

A 2005 Council Rock South graduate, Gremminger first studied international politics and economics at Penn State. In 2006, following his freshman year, he joined the Marine Corps Reserves. He graduated in 2009, all the while serving the customary one weekend per month and two weeks per year with the Reserves. He enrolled in law school at Drexel, then in November was summoned, along with 38 other enlistees, to report to a training facility in Pittsburgh.

By January of 2010 he was headed to North Carolina’s Cherry Point, a Marine Corps Air Station not far from Camp Lejeune. He was a Lance Corporal, promoted to Corporal once he and the rest of his unit landed in Afghanistan, after a Valentine’s Day departure led them through Kyrgyzstan. The crew set down at Camp Leatherneck, where they offered force protection and aided British soldiers. Before long they began their new assignment of police mentoring, moving on to Now Zad, a town in southern Afghanistan.

“We were training Afghan police, being accountable for them, going on patrols with them and having them work with the Afghan army,” Gremminger says, noting that the police and the army often speak different languages and rarely get along.

Gremminger says Now Zad was strewn with IEDs, a number of which he personally saw detonate. If not found and dismantled by Afghan de-miners, who’d sweep areas for old and new explosives, Taliban-planted IEDs would often be set off by vehicles. Fortunately, Gremminger explains, most current military vehicles are far more enforced than traditional Humvees; during his time served, Gremminger saw only IED-related injuries, and no fatalities.

“I can’t complain,” Gremminger says. “A lot of Marines have seen more dangerous situations with more hazardous conditions.”

What Gremminger did see was the gradual rebirth of a community, ushered along by his own efforts. On establishing a rapport with the Afghan police, he says mealtime played a pivotal role. He says Afghan people take rituals like gathering around together to eat very seriously, and rushing through the process is not an option. According to Gremminger, shifting from completing his duties and thinking in an “all-business” U.S. mindset was challenging, but invaluable in getting to know the locals.

When Gremminger and company first arrived in Now Zad, the town “was half-rubble and housing only 10 percent of its population,” the soldier says. Over their five months of service, the Marines saw the population grow to nearly five times its size; the market, or bazaar, expand and thrive with the opening of additional shops; and a decrease of Taliban control as the incresingly fortified Afghan police expanded its influence and gained more territory. By the time the Marines’ mission had neared completion, the number of local officers had increased from 14 to 100.

“Once people saw the security was stabilizing, they began to return to their homes,” Gremminger says of the slowly repopulated region.

Gremminger was of course ready to return home, too. He and his peers departed Afghanistan around Dec. 9, spent a couple of days in transit, then returned to Cherry Point. Retracing his steps, he then went back to his Pittsburgh training facility for “decompression and transition classes,” before finally touching down again at his Holland home on Friday, Oct. 1. While basking in his creature comforts, the 23-year-old speaks of what his tour taught him.

“It has a definite maturing effect,” he says, “and I’m sure that’s even more true for the even younger guys over there. And it lets you see how other people live. So many people study abroad, but they don’t really get to see how the other half lives – the poor majority.”

Having done his part, Gremminger says he doesn’t plan on pursuing a career in the military. Instead, he’s aiming to go back to law school next fall, with an ultimate goal of practicing business or contract law. For now, he says he’s in search of “some work to hold [him] off,” along with activities that will help him remain active.

“Anything that keeps me moving,” he says.