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thedrifter
11-27-05, 07:45 AM
Strange World
Twin brothers who have done two tours of duty in Iraq find that the return to civilian life is a hard adjustment
By Mary Giunca
JOURNAL REPORTER
Sunday, November 27, 2005

On their second tour of duty in Iraq, twins Matt and Nate Rogers were assigned to Fallujah, where part of their duty was driving along roads to lure out insurgents. There was a constant danger of bombs along the roadside that could be set off by the enemy by remote-control. It took complete vigilance while in the trucks, the twins said.

"You would memorize the individual pieces of trash," Matt said. "You'd be driving along and you'd get this little tingle. You'd see something that wasn't there before."

That tingle, or hunch, served often as an alert that a bomb had been planted where the trash on the ground had been disturbed.

Since their return to their home in Arcadia in September, the Rogers twins have been trying to find their way back into civilian life, as they wait to resume their studies in January. Matt is working at the U.S. Marine Recruiting Station in Winston-Salem, and Nate works at the Marine Reserve Center in Greensboro and is in training to recover from the injuries that he suffered in an explosion last summer.

They retain their boyish charm and their fun-loving ways. But the war has marked them.

"I don't feel like a 24-year-old," Matt said. "I've been to war twice. I feel like I've done 50 years of living in 24 years."

The twins have all of the hallmarks of grown-up life.

"We've been to seven countries, 25 states,'' Nate said. The twins also have bought a house that is being built in Charlotte. "We have two cars. We got a washer and dryer for our birthday."

The twins are lance corporals in Communications Co. 4th FSSG from Greensboro. Both trained as radio operators. They were first called to duty in January 2003, when they worked as radio operators. Matt was sent to Iraq, and Nate was sent to Kuwait for a few months, then was reunited with his brother in Iraq.

When the six-month tour ended, they returned to their studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Then, in March of this year, they were recalled. This time, they were stationed at a base camp in Fallujah. Nate was a radio operator, and Matt was assigned to a military police unit as a machine-gun operator.

The watchfulness that the twins acquired in Iraq has stuck with them on their return.

On their third night home, the twins decided to go to out to eat around 11.

Matt drove in the center of N.C. 150 the whole way with his truck lights off, as he was accustomed to doing in Iraq to avoid roadside bombs.

People began honking their horns.

"I was running people off the road, and I didn't even know it," Matt said.

Another day, they were on their way to Charlotte when Nate drove their Dodge Stratus over a bag of trash. In Iraq, bombs were placed in such bags and left on the road. Out of habit, both of them dived toward the center console in preparation for an explosion. They hugged when they realized that everything was fine.

All of this was far from what the twins expected when they signed up with the Marine Reserves back in January 2002. They were third-generation military men who were looking for money for college. They intended to perform their military service after they graduated, Nate said, and on the weekends.

Instead, a year after signing on, they shipped out to Iraq.

There, they became accustomed to the 130-degree heat that bleached their olive drab T-shirts white from sweat. The roar of SCUD missiles would blast them from their sleep.

Both twins came under fire during their first tour. Neither likes to talk about the specifics.

Matt had a chance to defer when the second call came. He was close to finishing his degree in history, but he didn't want Nate to go back to Iraq by himself.

So in March, the twins returned to Iraq.

This time around, conditions in camp were almost luxurious compared to the first time, but the work was harder because there was never a time that the twins could let their guard down, they said.

On July 12, Matt was sitting in a truck that was intended as a decoy to lure the insurgents out of hiding. Nate was working the radio in a truck that was three miles down the road. Things didn't go according to plan.

Nate's truck drove over a tank mine. Matt and the other Marines in his truck both saw and heard the explosion. Matt heard one of the other Marines ask over the radio: "Are they OK?"

There was no answer.

The driver of Matt's truck drove toward the explosion.

"I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life," he said. "When I saw the truck, I thought, 'There's no way anyone's alive.'"

A buddy of Matt's tackled him as he ran toward what remained of Nate's Humvee. He told Matt that all four men who were in the explosion survived.

Nate was taken back to a surgical unit at the Marines' camp and put on several weeks of bed rest and light duty.

"It looked like someone took a baseball bat to him," Matt said of his twin.

Nate doesn't remember anything about the explosion. He woke up in the hospital three days later with a concussion, a foot injury and a blown eardrum. Doctors have told him that his mild hearing loss is permanent, he said.

Several weeks later, Matt came under fire when his squad was attacked while protecting a supply convey that was heading back from Ramadi. A few Marines faced fire from about 40 Iraqis as they put themselves between the insurgents and the convoy.

"The question everyone asked me afterward was, 'Were you scared?'" Matt said. "It's hard to explain. I wasn't scared for myself. I was scared for the other guys. They're like your brothers."

One night recently, Matt said he dreamed that he was back in the ambush trying to jump out of his Humvee. He woke up as he jumped from his bed and hit his arm on his dresser.

Changed lives

The twins' relationships with people back home had been changing throughout their Reserves duty.

About six months after their first tour of duty, Nate broke up with his girlfriend of a year and a half.

During the second tour, Matt's fiance, whom he had dated for six years, broke up with him.

"I know in my case, I don't think I've ever felt more alone in my life," Matt said. "There's certain people you look to for support, and when you've grown that attached to someone, it's devastating when they're not there. They're the reason you go over there and you fight. They're the reason you don't mind going through that kind of hell."

Their experiences in Iraq divide them from other 24-year-olds, they said.

"Things that are huge to them, we really don't care about," Matt said. "The guy I was when I graduated from high school is not the guy I am now."

For Nate, the changes have been more marked.

"They say I'm a little bit meaner than I used to be," he said. "I'm more serious."

Matt said he is impatient to get out in the world. He expects to graduate in June with a history degree, and he wants to enter the FBI. Nate hopes to graduate in December with a history degree and wants to become an Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent.

Julie Brandon, their aunt, says she wonders if what they have gone through will have a long-term effect.

"You hear about all the Vietnam people coming back and having flashbacks," she said. "I wonder if that will happen to them. They're 24 years old, and they've seen more death than most of us have in a lifetime."

Several family members said they sense some tension, too, in the fact that the twins have gone through so much, but back in the civilian world, they are behind many people their age who have graduated from college and are working on their careers, getting married and having babies.

Nate, who has always been the more fun-loving, said he is more willing to go after what he wants in life now.

"I'm tired of beating around the bush. Tell it like it is," he said. "I'm not going to take any crap. It's my way or the highway."

Staff Sgt. Jess Bankston, who helped train the twins before the war and who served in Iraq with them, said that the frustration the men feel with civilian life is understandable.

"There's no room for error when you're in combat," he said. "If someone's being indecisive or making stupid mistakes, it's frustrating. It's not that Nate's any meaner, it's that he's matured so much and he sees people the same age as him acting like 16- or 17-year-olds."

What they're thinking

Mack Rogers, the twins' grandfather, said that Matt and Nate are handling things better after this second round of duty. But he said that they will never be the same as they were.

"You can be sitting around talking, and you look at them, and they're somewhere else," he said. "I know what they're thinking. They're thinking about what they've been through."

Nate said that one of his favorite experiences in Iraq came a few months ago, when he sat in the desert and watched the explosions of bombs in the sky.

"It's America's freedom, and we're actually doing it," he said he remembers thinking.

Now that he's home, he said he has trouble listening to people say that they support the troops, but not the war.

"I am the war," he said.

• Mary Giunca can be reached at 727-4089 or at mgiunca@wsjournal.com

Ellie

yellowwing
11-27-05, 08:31 AM
Now that he's home, he said he has trouble listening to people say that they support the troops, but not the war.

"I am the war," he said.
Now that's heavy duty.