After earning an engineering degree at CSU, Andrew Bragg started his engineering career and recently published a memoir about his experiences during the war in Afghanistan.
Andrew Bragg describes himself as a patriot from a young age—he loved the movies Saving Private Ryan and Blackhawk Down and he considered American soldiers heroes. When he watched the 9/11/2011 terrorist attacks unfold on live television from his eighth-grade art classroom, he knew that he wanted to serve his country.
“I enlisted in the US Army in 2006 as an airborne infantryman right after graduating high school,” says Andrew, who was born and raised in Ohio. During his four and a half years as a paratrooper, Andrew was deployed to Afghanistan for about half of that time—during two separate deployments. He was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina for the rest.
He was honorably discharged in November 2010 at the rank of sergeant. At the beginning of 2011, Andrew visited a childhood friend living in Breckenridge. “I fell in love with Colorado and decided to move to Fort Collins that summer,” he recalls.
He explored colleges in the area with Emergency Medical Technician programs, which led him to Front Range Community College.
Drawn to a Career Helping Others
The EMT path seemed a natural fit to Andrew given his military background. “I’d experienced so much trauma in the Army that I figured that was something I could do,” he says. At Front Range, he felt welcome and supported, especially by his EMT instructor, Andrea Richards.
“She let me share my experiences with the class and even teach part of the lesson on treating explosive injuries since I had just done a lot of that in Afghanistan. She understood me and my demeanor as a veteran.”
Once Andrew earned the EMT certification, he pursued a pre-paramedic pathway at FRCC, working as a lead EMT for Colorado Motorcross Medics on the weekends and volunteering as an EMT for Poudre Valley Hospital.
Finding His Language: Math
But when he began taking math courses, Andrew had a change of heart about his career path. “The medical side of emergency medicine was not my strength, and I realized that math was my language,” he says.
“One of my professors took notice and offered me a peer tutoring position at FRCC. Helping other students made me feel good, and I was able to break down math for students in a way that made it understandable.”
Following the Path to Engineering
Andrew completed the Associate of General Studies at Front Range in 2015, transferred to Colorado State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 2019. After graduating, he gained experience in cell tower engineering and at Lockheed Martin as a quality engineer.
After a while Andrew became eager to work with his hands again, so he took a break from engineering in 2022 to build log cabins for a custom builder in Bailey. That year, the book Bravo Company, was published, detailing the experiences of the 82nd Airborne Division’s Bravo Company soldiers in Afghanistan. Andrew was in Charlie Company.
A Long-Fought Invisible War
Although Andrew had returned home from Afghanistan 12 years earlier, the effects were long lasting.
“When I read that book, it brought back all of the memories from my second deployment of 12 months,” he says. Andrew had been in the 82nd Airborne Division’s second platoon fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan’s Arghandab River Valley alongside about 40 other soldiers.
The battles were grueling and nearly constant, killing and seriously wounding so many soldiers—nearly half of the platoon—that replacements had to be sent halfway through 2010. “The sounds, the sights, the smells: It all came rushing back, and it hit me hard.”
Reconnecting With Fellow Soldiers
Despite his success moving forward with his life, Andrew still had invisible wounds. He felt a strong calling to reach out to his Army brothers of Charlie Company. “I’d thought about the guys in my platoon every single day for 12 years, but I never reached out,” he says.
“None of us did. We were running away from what happened in that valley. But I looked them all up on social media, reached out and asked what everybody thought about me writing a book about us. About our story.”
A Cross-Country Journey of Healing
At the end of 2022, Andrew quit his job building log cabins, packed up his truck and hit the road.
“The first friend I went to see in the San Francisco Bay area has done some podcasting and let me borrow his equipment so I could record my interviews with everyone,” Andrew says.
Over the next 16 months, he reunited with 35 of his fellow platoon leaders in 20 states. “It was the most powerful time in my life,” he says.
“I got to meet their wives and kids and see the men they’d each become. We started facing our demons—doing Zoom calls and talking about those hard days for the first time ever. The amount of healing that has gone on… I don’t know how to put it into words. It’s helped so many of us in Charlie.”
Giving His Brothers a Voice
Andrew’s other goals in writing a memoir about their experience was to honor the soldiers they had lost and give his brothers a voice. When he finished his cross-country journey, he settled in Idaho Falls, a quiet town between Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole where a friend was living.
“I spent the next six months in the public library putting everything together. I had all the guys read what I wrote and give me their feedback. It was very difficult at times, and I’d bawl my eyes out in the library. But it was something I had to do.”
Andrew secured a publisher and spent most of 2024 working with editors and getting approval from the Department of Defense.
The Devil’s Playground
The Devil’s Playground: The Story of Two Charlie and The Arghandab River Valley was released in October of 2024. But Andrew’s proudest achievement isn’t becoming a published author. It has been giving something to the men of Two Charlie that they can share with their families and friends to understand what has shaped them.
Most importantly, writing The Devil’s Playground brought most of the men of Charlie back together. “We’ve gotten some of them enrolled in Veterans Administration health care benefits, and we’ve done a lot to help everyone,” Andrew says.
“The best part is, we’re having reunions now—three so far, including one guy’s son’s wedding. When we’re together, we’re talking about our jobs and kids and lives rather than the bad times.”
A Front Range Reunion
Andrew recently joined the Idaho National Laboratory, working on the chemical management team at the storage area. He hopes to return to an engineering role there one day, but after devoting two years of his life to his book, he’s grateful for the opportunity to do what he’s doing.
In November 2024, Andrew and about 25 of his Army friends gathered in Fort Collins for a Two Charlie reunion. He held a book release party in Old Town and invited several Gold Star families and his former Front Range instructor, Andrea Richards.
“Having Andrea there reminded me what a great experience it was attending FRCC,” he says. “FRCC holds a very special place in my heart because of the bonds I had with teachers and other students, and because I really feel FRCC cares about students getting an education. I’m very proud to hold a degree from Front Range.”
