Remembering Tim at 50

I’m taking a break from football, culture, and coaching talk on the blog this week to celebrate one of my heroes.

Command Sergeant Major Timothy A. Bolyard would have turned 50 this week. That number feels heavy to me. The older I get, the more I notice how strange time is. It moves quickly when it’s passing, feels slow when you look back, and seems unfair when it’s cut short.

If you haven’t served, here’s some context: a command sergeant major is the senior enlisted advisor to a commander. They act as a mentor, a conscience, a sounding board, a truth-teller, a protector, a historian for the unit, and sometimes like a big brother. The relationship between a commander and a CSM can look different in every unit, but the best ones are built on quiet trust and honesty. Picture Sam Elliot in “We Were Soldiers”. At our best, we worked together as one mind and one heartbeat. That’s how I liked it, and that’s exactly who Tim was.

We met before deploying to Afghanistan as the first command team of a new unit, the 3rd Squadron of the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade. Calling it a “unit” might have been generous. We arrived to find no name, no equipment, no headquarters, no doctrine, and not many people. The idea was still brand new. So, we focused on what we both knew: take care of soldiers, build trust, and get to work.

Living in a tent in Afghanistan teaches you more about someone than almost anything else. It’s close quarters in ways you don’t always want, and sometimes in ways you do. You find out who wakes up early, who snores, who gets grumpy before coffee, who hides their pain, and who hits the snooze button a little too often. Tim did.

Military life creates friendships that don’t always make sense outside that world. You don’t bond over hobbies, neighborhoods, or shared interests like most civilians do. Instead, you connect through hardship, boredom, risk, and small moments that matter because of where you are and what you’re dealing with. I’ll admit, some of that bonding is a little dark, but that’s how we liked it. I’ve had many meaningful professional relationships, but nothing compares to the bond between a commander and a CSM. No matter what unit you’re in, if that relationship is strong, everyone feels it. If it’s not, everyone suffers.

Tim and I had it good. We laughed more than people might expect. We debated constantly. We disagreed respectfully. We saw the world differently enough to be useful and similarly enough to be aligned. He asked blunt questions that made me better. He caught my blind spots. He checked in on my head and my soul when I was too proud or too preoccupied to do it myself. He understood people better than I did, and that’s saying something because I’ve always considered that one of my strengths.

He had a way of peeling off in the middle of a walk to talk to a junior NCO or a soldier about their family, their hometown, their goals, or some small problem that felt big to them. He always made time. Always. I knew he cared deeply for our soldiers, but I didn’t understand the extent of it until after September 3, 2018, when he was killed in Logar Province.

There’s a clear before and after that day for me. I had experienced loss before, but losing my command sergeant major, this command sergeant major, during a deployment was different. The grief was personal, but the responsibility remained. I had to keep myself together and try to help everyone else, too. I didn’t always succeed at either.

The months that followed were the hardest of my life. It wasn’t just the mission, even though it was demanding, but what it took out of us emotionally. We brought in chaplains and behavioral health professionals. We talked openly. We smoked cigars, drank near-beer, and shared stories. We checked on each other, especially those who struggled to show how they felt. What happened in the unit after his death reflected how he lived: everyone cared for each other.

I also got help for myself. I told the soldiers that at the time, and I’m saying it again now, because too many leaders still think getting help will hurt their career or reputation. It won’t. The real risk is pretending you don’t need it.

To be honest, it took me a while to fully appreciate the impact Tim had on me. I’ve written about him before, sometimes in academic settings and sometimes as a leadership case study, but he was more than a command sergeant major to me. He was a teammate, a mirror, and a conscience. He made me better and braver. He showed me that leadership is really about humility and being present, and how much one person can mean to those around them.

He should be here. He should be turning 50. He should be spoiling his granddaughter, yelling at a ballgame, or sleeping in and hitting the snooze button (again).

I am but one of countless people who served with Tim and got to experience his leadership and humanity. We don’t get to have that version of him anymore, but we do have the gift of the time we shared with him. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to live in a way that would make him proud.

If you knew Tim, celebrate him this week. If you didn’t, celebrate someone like him, because we all have at least one person whose quiet influence changed our path.

Happy birthday, brother. I miss you. I’m grateful for you. And I’m still trying to live up to you.