thedrifter
06-11-07, 05:40 AM
U.S. making impact in Iraqi city, Navy corpsman says
By SUSAN SPENCER-WENDEL
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 11, 2007
WELLINGTON — Many days in nearly nine months of duty in Iraq, Petty Officer 2nd Class Brian Simpson rode in convoys on the streets of Ramadi.
From the Humvee, Simpson saw a city that's made so many horrible headlines for violence taking a turn for the better, he said Sunday
"When we first got there, honestly, it looked like the worst neighborhood you could ever imagine," the 30-year-old said. "Buildings completely collapsed ... bullet hole pockmarks everywhere."
Ramadi, about 60 miles west of Baghdad, has been one of the insurgent hot spots of the long war and is in Anbar province, considered home base for Al-Qaeda.
Simpson said that as time wore on he saw repairs under way, Iraqis moving back into homes near his base in the center of the city, schools reopening and more people willing to walk on the streets.
"We are making a difference ... I've seen it," Simpson said. "A lot of the Iraqi people, they do appreciate what we are doing, and that's something you don't hear and you never see."
Simpson is a Navy corpsman stationed with the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines. Corpsmen are trained medics who help care for soldiers and Marines in the field.
The Wellington High School graduate returned to his home here this weekend. Sunday afternoon, his father, Bernie, hosted an open house for neighbors and friends to visit the sailor. Bernie Simpson said he wants people to remember it is not at all a war far away.
Brian Simpson said that in Iraq there might be long spells of waiting, then violence lasting a few minutes or a few hours. An insurgent attack, an explosion, an injury.
Simpson said the Bravo Company he worked with suffered no deaths in its time there.
He didn't want to talk about the gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries he did see.
"Most of it you just try to block out," he said.
Simpson said morale was good until their tour of duty was extended a few extra months. The Marines and corpsmen were well-supplied and taken care of. Care packages came along often from military families and veterans.
They arrived back in the United States in mid-May It took awhile, he said, for them to retrain their brains not to scan the streets for danger, to let a simple errand to Target be a simple errand.
They would get to the store and forget what they had gone for, he said. "But they could tell you the last 10 cars that drove past them, how many people were in them, how many males and females."
Simpson has reenlisted and will report back to duty this month - not on the ground in Iraq but on a ship. He could, though, end up on land again.
"It's one of those things that while you're there you hate it and don't want to be there in any way, shape or form," he said. "I mean, I love being with the Marines and I enjoy the military, so if they want me to go back, I'd go back. It's part of the job. You take the good with the bad."
Ellie
By SUSAN SPENCER-WENDEL
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 11, 2007
WELLINGTON — Many days in nearly nine months of duty in Iraq, Petty Officer 2nd Class Brian Simpson rode in convoys on the streets of Ramadi.
From the Humvee, Simpson saw a city that's made so many horrible headlines for violence taking a turn for the better, he said Sunday
"When we first got there, honestly, it looked like the worst neighborhood you could ever imagine," the 30-year-old said. "Buildings completely collapsed ... bullet hole pockmarks everywhere."
Ramadi, about 60 miles west of Baghdad, has been one of the insurgent hot spots of the long war and is in Anbar province, considered home base for Al-Qaeda.
Simpson said that as time wore on he saw repairs under way, Iraqis moving back into homes near his base in the center of the city, schools reopening and more people willing to walk on the streets.
"We are making a difference ... I've seen it," Simpson said. "A lot of the Iraqi people, they do appreciate what we are doing, and that's something you don't hear and you never see."
Simpson is a Navy corpsman stationed with the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines. Corpsmen are trained medics who help care for soldiers and Marines in the field.
The Wellington High School graduate returned to his home here this weekend. Sunday afternoon, his father, Bernie, hosted an open house for neighbors and friends to visit the sailor. Bernie Simpson said he wants people to remember it is not at all a war far away.
Brian Simpson said that in Iraq there might be long spells of waiting, then violence lasting a few minutes or a few hours. An insurgent attack, an explosion, an injury.
Simpson said the Bravo Company he worked with suffered no deaths in its time there.
He didn't want to talk about the gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries he did see.
"Most of it you just try to block out," he said.
Simpson said morale was good until their tour of duty was extended a few extra months. The Marines and corpsmen were well-supplied and taken care of. Care packages came along often from military families and veterans.
They arrived back in the United States in mid-May It took awhile, he said, for them to retrain their brains not to scan the streets for danger, to let a simple errand to Target be a simple errand.
They would get to the store and forget what they had gone for, he said. "But they could tell you the last 10 cars that drove past them, how many people were in them, how many males and females."
Simpson has reenlisted and will report back to duty this month - not on the ground in Iraq but on a ship. He could, though, end up on land again.
"It's one of those things that while you're there you hate it and don't want to be there in any way, shape or form," he said. "I mean, I love being with the Marines and I enjoy the military, so if they want me to go back, I'd go back. It's part of the job. You take the good with the bad."
Ellie