Tales from the front

[thedrifter]

By Richard Tomkins
UPI White House Correspondent
From the International Desk
Published 4/22/2003 6:22 PM
View printer-friendly version


WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- Not everything that occurs during war makes it into the initial stories correspondents file, especially personal observations and ruminations. Here are some of mine from having embedded with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines for the push from Kuwait to Baghdad.

-0-

ROLLIN' ON THE PORK CHOP EXPRESS

Ever notice how men tend to pamper their cars, especially those of the antique variety? They wash, they polish, they vacuum, they wax, they rub and rub and rub some more their four-wheeled pride and joy.

Marines with their amphibious assault vehicles are no different. Oh, sure, they have to take care of them, but somewhere along the line an unexplainable bond develops, much like that between sailors and their ships.

"Damn infantry," snarled Cpl. James Lyons, a normally affable AV driver from Springfield, Va. "They have no respect for anything. Look at the mess they made, look at the mud they dragged in."

Lyons and other crew called the Pork Chop Express (1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 3rd AV Battalion) were in a dither. Ground-pounders whose own vehicle had clapped out on the long march toward Baghdad, and were then added to the Pork Chop Express's manifest, had either not wiped the thick mud off their boots from a surprise bout of heavy rain before entering, or had scrapped them on the sill of the entry port. The sticky, slimy mass had to be scrapped away before the steel door could close.

And after they finally left ... well, there were empty food wrappers and boxes everywhere, and AV crew gear had been elbowed aside to make room for their own packs.

Disrespect, that's what it was, and totally unacceptable!

Now truth be told, the Pork Chop Express and her sisters are not much to look at. They are downright ugly, in fact, kind of a cross between a cockroach and a beetle on tracks. They are big and heavy -- 26 tons -- and slow despite their 400-horsepower engines.

According Lt. Anthony Sousa, commander of the Pork Chop Express, these vehicles were designed to take troops from ship to shore and a bit inland. Top speed on water is about 3 mph. On land, it normally cruises at 15 mph but can do 35 or better if needed. Gas mileage runs between 1.5 to 3 miles per gallon, depending on the model.

Armored plates are attached to its sides to deflect enemy fire, and they work. More than one AV sustained multiple hits from rocket-propelled grenades while entering Baghdad, but none penetrated the inner shells of the vehicles the 1st Battalion was riding in.

The Pork Chop Express is about 30 years old. It rattles, it clanks, and don't even ask about what it's like to ride in, comfort-wise. But it was home. It made it. It only clapped out once. True, it was a few minutes and a few miles before we rolled into a hellacious ambush, but hey, it did it beforehand -- not during -- and she eventually acceded to the crew's ministrations, incantations and exhortations.

In the days -- I can't remember the exact number anymore -- following the Marines' invasion of Iraq from Kuwait, she and her sister vehicles made one of the longest sustained marches by AVs in their history, which dates back to World War II.

Breakdowns occurred regularly with the AVs attached to the grunt units. Their crews, working around the clock in dust storms and without needed parts, stripped down and cannibalized others as needed. The result: The ride to victory, while crowded, continued.

-0-

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Bad news and good news for the folks at the Pentagon who came up with the name of this war -- Operation Iraqi Freedom. I know it sounded good from the public relations standpoint, but it got an initial thumbs-down from troops in the field. When told of the name, Marines of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines either just shook their heads in disbelief, groaned audibly or greeted it with a string of expletives.

Desert Storm II suited them fine, according to an unscientific straw poll, if political correctness was to rule the name game. Other high-scorers were Operation Sandstorm and Operation Stand Still, in honor of the many delays in the momentum of march to give supply trains time to catch up with front-line units.

The good news is that that attitude quickly changed, and it was the people of Iraq themselves that did it for the Marines. All it took was the liberation of a few poverty-stricken villages and outbursts of joy from a repressed people to change the Marines' mind.

-0-

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

Rolling across the Iraqi heartland for days on end in the same clothes you put on a week before hostilities began, you begin to appreciate the little things in life we so often take for granted.

Take fresh socks for instance.

Given that take-only-what-you-can-carry rule for the infantry, most Marines had only one or two changes of socks in their packs. And there was never enough time to wash them. So you'd turn the socks inside out after a few days to try to capture a fresher feeling. Later, you just gave up and adjusted to the sticky feeling, not to mention smell.

Later yet it was just airing your feet that became the treat, even if for just a few minutes. One thing about being in a war zone -- you don't take off your boots at night in case you must move quickly. It makes for a Mel Brooks-like comedy sketch when they finally do come off, especially in a group situation.

Well, guys would think it funny, but then the male species has a unique sense of humor.

For embedded reporters, these circumstances proved an unexpected benefit when they returned to Kuwait on the way home: They didn't have to wait in line at a hotel check-in counter. Other guests obligingly moved aside, hotel staff hurried them through the paperwork and made sure they made it to their rooms -- and baths -- with a minimum of delay.

And that bath ... There is nothing quite so exquisite as a hot shower and hot soak after a month without one.

I won't even mention another of life's pleasures. But let me say, not taking along an entrenchment tool (shovel) when answering nature's call was a real novelty back at the hotel. I did, however, miss the inevitable morning serenade from artillery batteries while attending to business once back in Kuwait City.

-0-

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING BE DAMNED

They don't put cigarettes in the individual meal packets of Marines anymore, but the noxious weed still carries high currency among the troops in the field, more so the farther you travel from home base.

Prior to the start of the land war, Marines lining up for hours at Camp Grizzly in Kuwait for the once-every-two weeks visit by the PX were only allowed to buy four packs because of low inventory. Lucky Marines were those who received smokes in packages from home.

The result: THEMS WITH became experts in the law of supply and demand when dealing with THEMS WITHOUT -- $4 a pack, $5 a pack, $6 or more was the going rate in Kuwait. Deep in Iraq and far from base, selling for profit gave way to bartering; later, bartering also fell to the wayside. Marines simply shared what they had. Eight or 10 men sharing one cigarette was commonplace.

While bartering was the rule, one pack of M&M candies from an MRE pack -- a rare find -- was worth two smokes. Later, a bite of lemon pound cake was worth a puff. How many packs for a candy bar or jar of coffee? Want a pack of MRE peaches?

This brings me to a gripe, a major gripe. OK, smoking is bad for your health. But hey, give the Marines in a battle zone a break.

And think of image. In every war movie you've ever seen, GIs win the hearts of local peoples by tossing them packs of cigarettes. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, impoverished Iraqis won the hearts of the GIs by offering their liberators smokes.

Sure, the blue-packed Sumer cigarettes -- "a fine blend of choice Iraqi and Virginia tobaccos" -- were a godsend, but we could have sworn they also contained at least a pinch of sawdust.

-0-

CLOSE SCRAPES

Death or injury is horrifically random in war. And survival is sometimes almost inexplicable. Some chalk it up to Lady Luck; others to fate and God's will.

Here are three such incidents in which, in this reporter's opinion, angels were looking out for our boys. I'm leaving the names out, however. The men involved may not want their families to know how close they came to meeting their Maker.

-- It was the battle for a key bridge over the Saddam Hussein Canal, a span that would give Marines quick access from southern Iraq to central Iraq. The ambush of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, began almost as soon as we crossed the short expanse. A company of Iraqi troops opened up with automatic rifles and mortars from positions off the side of the road. Lucky for Bravo, the second Iraqi company on the other side of the road didn't open up when the Marines exited their vehicles to do battle -- they ran, leaving the Marines only one direction on which to concentrate. Mortars rained down on our positions, but luckily no one was hurt, not even a flanking platoon which was showered by debris thrown up by a round that landed just 10 meters (30 feet) from where they were moving forward at a crouch.

continued........

[thedrifter]

-- A thunderous, metallic bang sounded, a bright and eerie orange light filled the compartment; dirt, stones and metal rained in and the Pork Chop Express, all 26 tons of her, pitched onto one track before righting herself. An RPG, aimed for the vehicle on the way into Baghdad had instead hit a burning 7-ton truck we were passing next to. The truck's explosion added to the explosion of the rocket, but we escaped. The men who had been standing half-out of the top of the AV firing at the enemy in the dark were shaken but unscathed. The mortar rounds, 50-caliber ammunition and 40mm grenades in the Pork Chop Express had not been set off. The battle was rejoined.

-- The corporal from Alpha Company was excited. He stopped everyone nearby to tell his tale. And what a tale it was. The Marine was driving his Humvee when ambushed in Baghdad and five bullets tore through the Hummer's paper-thin passenger door. Two exited without causing damage. One hit his passenger in the wrist. It was bullets four and five that kept his adrenalin pumping, however. Bullet four, he said, hit his shaving kit that had been placed in a raised position between the seats and lodged in a washcloth. Yup, a quick look confirmed the tale. Bullet five was still sticking out the side of his flak vest. The vehicle door, a flashlight and a metal drinking cup had slowed it down and kept it from penetrating the Kevlar protector he wore.

-0-

DEATH AND TENDERNESS

The crescendo of battle around the al Azimiyah Palace in Baghdad was deafening. It was like a Fourth of July fireworks display, with constant booms and bangs that were punctuated with the rapid-fire pops of automatic rifles. Yet when an AV pulled in and the body of Gunnery Sgt. Jeff Bohr of Alpha Company was brought out, the sounds of war suddenly seemed distant, muted; there was a vacuum of silence around us, or maybe we just imagined it.

The gunny had died fighting around a nearby mosque. In one hand, observers said, he had held his field phone, advising headquarters of his men's situation and asking for help in fighting off extremist gunmen. With the other, he was simultaneously firing his M-16 when felled.

Marines are supposed to be tough, and indeed they are. But that afternoon -- or was it morning -- an unbelievable tenderness was also shown. The gunny's body was lifted in a stretcher from the AV slowly and with great care as Marines, who just minutes before were shouting commands, lapsed into silence. The gunny's body armor, load-bearing vest and other accoutrements had to be removed before he was taken to an evacuation site. And it was done with a surprising gentleness. The respect shown in the handling of the gunny's body by these battle-hardened men brought something to mind -- parents lovingly placing a slumbering newborn into its crib and gently rearranging its blanket and clothing.

A Marine had died. One of their own.

Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International


Sempers,

Roger

[tommyboy]

what a great article. cant imagine going that far in an aav. that is simply amazing. im so proud of our marines. what a tough bunch!

[thedrifter]

Posted on Fri, Apr. 25, 2003

DEANGELO STROMAN - Pontiac, Mich.
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: DeAngelo Stroman
Hometown: Pontiac, Mich
Age: 19
Branch: Marines
Rank: Lance Corporal
Job: Security at a Navy surgical hospital br>


---


CAMP CHESTY, Central Iraq - The enemy prisoner of war sits naked in the sand, covered with a shiny silver blanket, his hands tied with plastic bands.


Lance Cpl. DeAngelo Stroman stands about 4 feet away, holding an M16 rifle.


The prisoner refuses to talk or cooperate. After a translator arrives, the prisoner is taken into the Navy surgical hospital, about 80 miles south of Baghdad. He doesn't appear to have any serious injuries.


"My shock trauma platoon, which is like a mobile surgical company, has seen 100 patients, and I'd say almost 75 percent or more has been EPWs," Stroman says, using the shorthand for enemy prisoners of war. "Most of them stay quiet. . . . You just want to watch them."


Stroman, 19, of Pontiac, Mich. isn't afraid. He stands 5 feet 10 and weighs 210 pounds. Most of the prisoners are small and look weak.


"There are a lot of people around," Stroman says. "The EPWs are unarmed, so they can't really do anything to you. Me? I'm a pretty big guy."


Stroman has four sisters and two brothers. He played football, basketball and baseball at Pontiac Northern High School. He played defensive end and wide receiver. "I was pretty good at football," he says. "I played a lot of sports to stay out of trouble."


Stroman's wife, Shaneka, talked him into joining the Marines a year and a half ago.


"It was my wife's decision," he says. "I wasn't really doing anything but getting in trouble. She sat me down and had a nice little conversation, and then I saw a recruiter. From there - boom! - that's how it happened."


Stroman trained to be a motor transport driver, called a Motor T. But he's been used as security in Iraq.


"My recruiter said, `Go Motor T, because it's really fun. You won't be away from your family a lot.' I said, `All right. Good to go. I'll go Motor T.' Before I knew it, I was here," he says.


He's been in Kuwait or Iraq for more than two months, watching the doctors make medical magic.


"Watching the doctors work is amazing," Stroman says. "We had one guy, an Iraqi, come in with three shots to his head, and our team was working hard and they brought him back. I was watching. I was curious. It's eye-opening."


When he gets out of the Marines in about three years, he plans to go to college.


"Hopefully, I'll have it better planned when I get back," he says. "But I want to go to school and get an associate's degree in business management or something, so I can get out and explore on my own."


Stroman and his wife have a daughter, Taylor.


"I miss home a lot," he says. "I miss everything. Snow. Real food. Ice water."


---


(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Posted on Thu, Apr. 24, 2003

BRIAN DOLLINGER - Morton, IL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Name: Brian Dollinger
Hometown: Morton, Ill.
Age: 30
Branch: Marines
Rank: Sergeant
Job: Combat engineer



---


CAMP CHESTY, central Iraq - Sgt. Brian Dollinger wants to be home in Morton, Ill., by May 30, when his daughter, Arianna, turns 3.


"I'm hoping to get back by then," he says. "And I know I'll be home in time for my wife's birthday in July."


But then he continues: "Every day that goes by, I get a little more concerned that I won't make it. That timeline is starting to crunch down."


Dollinger, 30, is a combat engineer with 6th Engineer Support Battalion, and his commanders aren't as optimistic about when they'll be back in the United States. They are hoping to get back by October, but even that date changes constantly.


"Even though the mission is complete, there are different things we can do as engineers," Dollinger says. "I'm ready for it to be done. But I know how long it took us to come over, all the stages it took to get to California and then to get over here."


Dollinger, a Marine Reserve, is a doctoral student in music at Ball State University. His specialty is conducting orchestras and playing the bass.


He was one semester from finishing his coursework when he was deployed, and now he doesn't know when he'll get a chance to finish it.


"Certain classes are offered only at certain times and not every year," Dollinger says. "That may be a problem when I get back."




After he earns his doctorate, Dollinger hopes to teach at the university level.


"Hopefully, it's a position like Ball State where I'll conduct the orchestras, I'll teach conducting, teach bass and then have a professional local symphony as well," he says.


His wife, Sabina, is also a doctoral candidate in music at Ball State. They were planning to marry in July, but they bumped up the wedding to Jan. 14. The next day, he had to report.


"It's been a learning experience to watch people adapt and cope with issues," he says. "Not everybody adapts very well. The ones you wouldn't think would be very strong have really come forward. I've been very surprised by a lot of Marines, how strong they've been and how they were able to pull through."


Dollinger has spent most of his time in Iraq fortifying positions and on security details. His main concern is losing a finger, which would hurt his ability to play the bass.


"When I'm doing the explosives, I'm not thinking about losing a finger," he says. "If something goes wrong, I'll lose more than a finger. When I'm doing barbed wire, yes, I think about it. If I lost a finger on my left hand, that would hurt me big time. That's the hand that goes up and down the neck of the instrument when I'm playing bass. As far as conducting, if I lost my right arm, I could conduct with my left."


He's on five paying orchestras, four consistently. "Everybody needs a bass player," he says.



When he gets back from the war, Dollinger plans to dedicate a performance to the Marines who died.


"There are tons of pieces out there that are used in memorial concerts," he says. "I'm going to have a moment of silence and play a piece for them."




While Dollinger is starving to hear some classical music, he says he has benefited by being around Marines with a wide variety of musical tastes.


"I would give anything for a Beethoven Symphony right now, a quartet, anything," he says. "But I've been hearing all kinds of music from the younger Marines. I can't even pronounce some of the names of these groups, can't understand some of the things they are saying, but it's different music and interesting to hear it. Once in a while, I'll even get a good country tune."


---


(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Posted on Thu, Apr. 24, 2003

JEREMY DEVAULT - Chillicothe, IL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Name: Jeremy DeVault
Hometown: Chillicothe, Ill.
Age: 21
Branch: Marines
Rank: Lance Corporal
Job: Combat engineer



---


CAMP CHESTY, central Iraq - For Lance Cpl. Jeremy DeVault, this war has been a grand adventure: wild, frightening, exciting, boring, sad and fun.


"It's been an experience of a lifetime," DeVault says. "It's something you can go back and tell your friends about. Nobody has been to Kuwait or Iraq. Nobody is ever going to come here to visit a country like this."


DeVault, 21, of Chillicothe, Ill., is a combat engineer with Charlie Company Engineers, 6th Engineer Support Battalion.


"It's like a big family," DeVault says. "I'll remember how close everybody came together. How everybody was willing to do everything for each other, to be one family."


A few weeks ago, DeVault was asked to work security for a convoy going south, to a camp in Kuwait. He stayed there two days, sleeping on a cot in an air-conditioned tent. He took showers and watched television.


"I felt awkward being down there, when my fellow Marines are up here" in Iraq, he says. "It wasn't bad coming back here. This is home, you know."




For DeVault, the highlight of the war came early on. As he was getting ready to get on a convoy in Kuwait headed for the Iraqi border, he watched a barrage of artillery go off.


"We were right there," he says. "It was like a movie. It surprised you at first, then you kinda rolled with it. You could see the flashes of lights. You could hear the rounds projecting. That's when I said, yeah, we are really here. You really need to get this job done."




DeVault, who is single, is a student at Illinois Community College in Peoria, studying accounting.


"Eventually, I want to own my own business, either a bar or an apartment complex, something like that," he says.


---



(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Posted on Wed, Apr. 23, 2003

COREY ROGERS - Loda, IL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers


Name: Corey Rogers
Hometown: Loda, Ill.
Age: 23
Branch: Marines
Rank: Corporal
Job: Combat engineer




---


CAMP CHESTY, central Iraq - Cpl. Corey Rogers keeps track of the missions on his T-shirt.


On his shoulder it says, "Convoy Club: 13." After every convoy, he adds another mark with a pen.


"We pretty much got told we will be security on all the convoys, all of them, anywhere," he says.


In a two-week period, he has driven 790 miles through Iraq.


Some are quick, three-hour trips, but others last up to 10 hours as he stands watch behind a massive machine gun.


"There is a lot of desert," he says and smiles. "I had a different image of what we would be doing. … I didn't know we'd be traveling like this."




Rogers mans a 240 Gulf, an accurate, powerful machine gun, but after a few weeks in the desert he hadn't fired it, so he went to a firing range. He found out it's not as accurate as he thought when shot from the top of the Humvee.


"We have it jerry-rigged, on a tripod mounted on the top of the Hummer," he says. "We have to put up a better platform, because when you lean into it, you can move it all around the target. It's just sitting on the canvas. It's not sturdy."


Rogers joined the Marines in May 1999 on the advice of his grandfather, J.R. Herriott.


"My grandpa always told me that he thought it was everybody's duty to serve their country," Rogers says. "Everybody in my family has been in the Air Force: both my grandfathers, my dad, my brother, my great-grandpa. They didn't pressure me into it. He just told me that everybody should serve their country. My grandpas told me some stories, but they never told me the day-to-day routine."


So why did he join the Marines?


"I wanted to do it right," he says. "The Marines have given me some pretty good leadership and discipline. I've been in some pretty crappy situations here. You eat crappy food and it's hard work and you are expected to do the job. It's like construction. When I was roofing, I did the same thing."




Rogers is a combat engineer with Charlie Company Engineers, 6th Engineer Support Battalion. "I just like to build stuff and go out shooting sometimes," he says. "And I like to blow stuff up. It's a new experience."




Roberts recently graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in construction management, but he wants to become a police officer.


He's pretty sure he'll be able to land a job, being a veteran and having a college degree. He was trying to land a job in Madison, Wis., when he was activated.


"I was supposed to take the physical test the day after we got activated," he says. "I had to call them and tell them that I wasn't going to take it. They said it's fine. They said the written test score will stand, but I have to fill out the application. They said I did pretty good on it."


---


(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Wed, Apr. 23, 2003

MATT ORME - St. Joseph, Mich.
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

CAMP CHESTY, central Iraq - Lt. Cmdr. Matt Orme lets out a smile.


"We just showered for the first time in 10 days," he says. "It was a big deal. It was awesome. If I had three layers of grit, I probably got two of them off."


Orme is an emergency room physician in charge of the shock, stabilization and triage area for a Navy surgical hospital in Iraq. He runs a staff of four doctors, four nurses and 16 corpsmen.


"It's like a mini emergency department,' he says. "… The hardest stuff is working on the Iraqi kids, those who are caught in the crossfire or used as a human shield. We've seen some pretty horrific injuries to small children."


Orme, 33, from St. Joseph, Mich., has a child, Ali Orme, 20 months old, about the same age as some of the children he has treated.


"Last night, we had a child with a penetrating wound to the skull, with a brain injury," he says. "Last week, we were down at Camp Anderson and there was a child whose face, nose and mouth had pretty much been blown off. It was pretty shaking to everybody involved.


"That evening, we had the combat stress people - the psychologists and psychiatrists - come and talk to people and tell them that it's OK to talk about it among yourselves. It's OK to be upset by that. We have a good working relationship. Since we are the first ones to see things, we usually see the goriest stuff. We have a good relationship with our combat stress folks. They are available anytime, as an individual or as a group."




Orme joined the Navy on its medical school scholarship program, graduating from Indiana University Medical School.


"The Navy paid for med school, and I've been in for eight years," he says. "I'll be out in about another year. This is my last stop with the Navy. I got selected, invited, whatever you call it, to come out here."


He plans to become an emergency room doctor when he leaves the military.




He sleeps in a tent on a cot, about 18 inches from the next person. He goes running to get rid of stress, but the thing that makes him happy is when he gets letters from his wife, Kate.


He closes every letter to his wife by writing: "We are doing a good job. I miss you guys. And hopefully I'll be home soon."



(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Tue, Apr. 22, 2003

MIKE NACE - Hemet, CA
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Name: Mike Nace
Hometown: Hemet, Calif.
Age: 42
Branch: Navy
Rank:Lieutenant commander
Job: Nurse



---


CAMP CHESTY, central Iraq - Lt. Cmdr. Mike Nace gets off the helicopter and faces the ambulances, holding up four fingers.


"Four injured?" the ambulance driver asks.


No, Nace gestures. "Four ambulances," he says.


Three of the injured walk down the helicopter ramp with their arms in slings. One man is limping so badly that another Marine has to help him to the ambulance.


Nace disappears into the helicopter and comes off with a Marine on a stretcher. The Marine is rushed to the Navy surgical hospital in the back of an ambulance. At the same time, another helicopter unloads a string of enemy prisoners of war.


Thirteen patients show up at once. The medics and doctors work quickly, trying to figure out who should be treated first. Two Marines lie side by side on stretchers. They punch hands, giving each other encouragement.


Nace stays with a Marine who was injured about 18 hours earlier in a suicide bombing in Baghdad. The major battles of this war appear over, and Nace believes the danger now will come from terrorist attacks.


"We had four or five Marines and eight to 10 civilians who had shrapnel injuries from a terrorist," Nace says. "They were getting ready to set up a defensive perimeter. A bunch of people were hollering and waving, happy to see the guys. Somebody broke through, and they said he had a bomb on his back, detonated it and took all these people out with the Marines."




Nace has been up all night, working on the injured at a trauma unit about 7 miles from Baghdad. It's about a 40-minute flight to this surgical hospital.




This is Nace's fifth deployment to another country. He was part of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield, and he was in Bosnia and Beirut, Lebanon.


"We are moving faster as far as the medical part," he says. "During Desert Storm, we set up right behind the breach. We were about 6 miles back. We saw 750 patients in five days, and we were a big group.


"In the last five days, we've seen 132 patients. Yesterday, we had 13 operating room cases."


And that's at a small trauma unit.


"We've seen a lot of kids," he says. "We didn't think we would see a lot of kids."


Nace has three children of his own. As much as he wants to see his family, he thinks he'll be in Iraq for a while.


---



(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Mon, Apr. 21, 2003

PAUL SAILER - Pekin, IL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Name: Paul Sailer
Hometown: Pekin, Ill.
Age: 22
Branch: Marines
Rank: Lance Corporal
Job:Combat engineer





---


CAMP VIPER, southern Iraq - Marine Lance Cpl. Paul Sailer is on watch, late at night, trying to stay alert. He won't fall asleep, no way, not after what happened last time.


"I fell asleep on watch a long time ago and learned my lesson,"


Sailer says. "They made me dig a grave for myself, 6 foot by 6 foot. Took me all day. I was sweating big time when I was done, and it taught me a lesson."


Sailer, 22, of Pekin, Ill., is a combat engineer for Charlie Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion.


"This ain't so bad," he says. "There's not much to it. I get up, stand guard duty or fill sandbags and go to bed."


He is stationed in Iraq, facing miserable conditions from 100-degree heat to sandstorms. The Marines sleep in two-man pup tents or bivy bags, which are basically large, fancy sleeping bags. "That's pretty comfortable as long as you dig up the sand under the tent before you go to bed," he says.




They eat meals-ready-to-eat, prepackaged meals that include everything from a main course to fruit.


"I've hated MREs since boot camp," Sailer says. "They are horrible. They all taste exactly the same, either bland or Tabasco sauce, there's no difference."


Sailer said one other thing that bothers him is what he calls "the hurry up and wait."


"They say, `We are gonna leave in five minutes. We are gonna leave in five minutes,' and then 10 hours later you still aren't gone," he says. "Everything gets fumbled. Everything gets packed in the wrong place. When they want you to find something in a hurry, it's like, man, where did I put that?"




Sailer joined the Marines in 1999 after high school. "I was bored," he says. "I was just about to graduate from high school and I had nothing to do. A recruiter called and I said, `Sure, I'll come down.' "


Less than a month later, he was in the delayed entry program for the Marine Reserves.


"At the time, it was my parents' influence," he says. "If I had to do it over, I would have gone active, not reserves. My dad was all for it, but my mom wanted me to stay home and go to college."


He studies prelaw at Illinois Central College. He plans to transfer to Illinois State University when he returns home.


"I miss music and alcohol," he says. "I miss vodka. That's the way to go. And I miss hanging out with my friends, just normal life, so I don't have to worry about anybody shooting my butt."






(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Mon, Apr. 21, 2003

JACOB EMMONS - Tremont, IL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Jacob Emmons
Hometown: Tremont, Ill
Age: 19
Branch: Marines
Rank: Private first class
Job: Combat engineer


---


CAMP CHESTY, Iraq - Pfc. Jacob Emmons digs into a pile of dirt, building a bunker. Wearing sandy-brown boots, his feet hurt and they feel as if they're bleeding, but it helps to keep working, to keep his mind off the pain.


He digs into the dirt again and smells something familiar, something far away.


"You know what that smells like?" he asks, putting his face close to the soil. "It smells like baseball."


For several weeks, Emmons was based at a Marine camp in the middle of the Iraqi desert. There was nothing but sand in every direction. No sign of life, nothing but a big sweeping sky and an occasional sandstorm. Now he has moved forward, to a camp about 80 miles from Baghdad. The dirt is rich, the weather seems 20 degrees cooler and the horizon is full of life - palm trees and long grass.


"Baseball," he says, and smiles.


Emmons, 19, a Marine Reserve from Tremont, Ill., is a combat engineer for Charlie Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion. He had a baseball scholarship to Spoon River College in Canton, Ill., but he had to turn it down when he was activated.


"I called up the baseball coach and I told him that I thought we were gonna get activated," Emmons says. "He said, `That's cool. We'll re-up your scholarship for next year.' "


Emmons grew up a Marine brat. He was born in Guantanamo Bay, where his father, Rod Emmons, was stationed.




"I have pictures of me as a kid, sitting on howitzers and on big arty (artillery)," he says. "It was pretty cool. My dad got discharged from the Marines because he hurt his back. I've always heard stories about the Marines, and I wanted to join. My dad said that he didn't want me to join the Marine Corps unless I got an education out of it too."


So Emmons joined the reserves.


He went through boot camp last summer, and he's been in the Middle East for two months.




When the United States invaded Iraq, the Marines wore bio-chem suits and rubber boots in case Iraq launched a biological or chemical attack. Emmons wore the rubber boots, over his leather boots, for more than 30 hours straight without changing his socks. His feet were drenched with sweat.


"My feet couldn't breathe," he says. "After that, my feet started hurting a little bit."


A few days later, he noticed a little red patch on his left foot.


"I wasn't going to complain to the corpsman about that," Emmons says. "He would say, `Just suck it up.' From there, we started working, laying wire, setting up trip flares. We had to work dusk to dawn, every day."


He let his feet air out at night, but he didn't change his socks and he didn't use any foot powder; all rookie mistakes.



"You don't want to waste all your socks, because you don't know when you are going to wash them next," he says.


The little red patch started to grow, creeping across the middle of his foot. It worked its way to the side and up and around his heel.


Then his heel turned white. It got so bad he could barely walk.


But he was so busy, in so many dangerous situations, he didn't bother to think about his feet. On one convoy, he was involved in his first combat.


"We had tracers coming at us, about 40 yards off the road," Emmons says. "We just unloaded. It was dark out and we could just see flashes, and that's what we shot at. There were tracers behind us. Tracers in front of us. Tracers coming at us in every direction. Nobody was scared. That's what I was so impressed with. Nobody was ducking their head or anything. We were all keeping low, right? But that's when I felt good about my squad."


His feet kept getting worse. When he put them into the air, they started throbbing. When he put them down, it felt as if they were on fire; when he walked, it felt as if they were bleeding.



A few days ago, a doctor stopped by Camp Chesty and asked if anybody had any medical problems.


Several Marines took off their boots.


"That's just heat rash," the doctor said to one Marine.


"Oh, those are just calluses," he told another.


Then he looked at Emmons' feet. They were blood red.


"Your feet gotta be killing you," the doc said.


"Yeah, a little bit," he said.


"You know what this is?"


"No."


"Right there, that's swamp foot," the doctor said, pointing at Emmons' heel. Then he motioned to the rest of it. "That's the start of cellulitis," he said. "I can see it going up your foot."


Emmons got a 10-day course of antibiotics and a big lecture.


"They told me that I'm a private first class and I don't know the tricks of the trade," Emmons says.


He was ordered to wash his feet twice a day, change his socks every chance he gets and use foot powder.




He's been on light duty for the last three days. He sits in a bunker, with his socks off, wearing sandals.


Emmons has been on antibiotics for a few days, and he's improved. His feet are getting better. Now they are pink, purple, red and yellow. But the color seems to be fading and the pain is almost all gone. "I can walk. Every now and then, when they get sweaty, it starts to hurt again," he says.


He senses that the war is starting to come to a close, and it makes him think about going home even more.


"On post, there is nothing out there, and you just gaze off and say, `I wish I was back home playing baseball.' "


(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Mon, Apr. 21, 2003

SARAH CADE - Detroit, Michigan
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Sarah Cade
Hometown: Detroit, Mich.
Age: 27
Branch: Navy
Rank: Corpsman


---


CAMP CHESTY, central Iraq - Number 220 sits under a camouflaged net, at the U.S. Navy surgical hospital, looking absolutely harmless.


She wears a pink and orange dress and has long black hair braided down her back. She has a shrapnel wound in her side.


Sarah Cade, a Navy corpsman from Detroit, treats the injury, which isn't life-threatening.


Number 221 sits on the same cot. The woman, probably in her mid-30s, is wrapped in a silver blanket. She wears a purple and gold dress and her head is covered with a scarf. Cade puts a bandage on her right foot.


The woman starts to cry, holding her face in her hands, wiping tears from her eyes.


"Your family is in the back," Cade says. "They are all right."


The women say they are Iraqi civilians. Cade treats them with respect, giving them warmth and compassion, but she doesn't trust them.


"They came in, and they said their car was all shot up," Cade says. "They came in with two males, and the women said the males are their brothers. But you don't know if the males are civilian or military, and the women could be in on it, too. . . . The way this is going, the military folks are dressing up in civilian clothing. We don't know who is who. The females could be in on it, as you'd say."


No matter who comes to this hospital - Marines, Iraqi civilians or enemy prisoners of war (EPWs) - they are all treated the same. They are tracked by numbers written on their hands.


"The thing that's really hard for corpsman is we are here to take care of our Marines," Cade says. "But we have to take care of somebody who is trying to hurt us. And that's very, very hard for me to see. I don't want to see the EPWs. I don't want to give them any water, but it's my job and I do it. And I take pride in taking care of them."




She says it comes by instinct.


"It's a mother thing," she says. "If you see a baby fall and scrape their knee, your instinct is to pick that child back up."


As she treats the patients, she is protected by a Marine security detail, armed with M16 rifles.


"My Marines take care of me," Cade says. "If I say, `Get them down,' they get them down. . . . They don't leave my side."




Cade, 27, was born and raised in Detroit, in a family with five brothers and sisters. She graduated from McKenzie High School. While attending Wayne County Community College, she had a daughter, Marcia Black, now 7. Cade tried to work, go to school and raise a child as a single parent, but it was too hard.


"It didn't seem like I had enough time to be with her," Cade says.


Six years ago, she joined the Navy. She is stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and works with the 2nd Medical Battalion.


"It's fun," she says. "It's a good experience. I'm glad I joined. I'm going to re-enlist for three years and then get out."




This is Cade's first time in a combat zone, and she has seen several gruesome injuries.


"Some dude got shot three times in the head," Cade says. "One came out his eye. He was also shot in the back."


She also treated a major in the Iraqi Republican Guard.


"You know he was up there in the military," she says. "He was clean. Had a nice shave. Hair cut and everything. He had a bullet in his arm."


While she's extremely careful around the prisoners, she opens up with the Marines.


"You sit and talk to them," Cade says. "They are very grateful that you even sit and talk to them. I ask them: `How you doing? Where are you from? Everything is going to be OK.' "


Her unit has moved several times, going north through Iraq, from Breach Point West to Camp Viper to Camp Anderson to Camp Chesty.


She's been in the Middle East for more than two months, and she's ready to go home. She plans to go to Jacksonville, N.C., near Camp Lejeune, for a few days before heading to Detroit to pick up her daughter, who is staying with Cade's mother, Valencia Grier.


"I'm going to go and relax for two or three days. . . . I don't want to bring that home. Those days are gonna be quiet. No helicopters. No generators. Real running water. Nice. I'm just gonna sit and relax," she says. "I'm ready now. I'm ready to go home. I've been here too long. But we can't go home until the war is over, and I'm fine with that."





(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Fri, Apr. 18, 2003

TIFFANY CARLSON - Vancouver, WA.
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers


Name: Tiffany Carlson
Hometown: Vancouver, Wash
Age: 21
Branch: Marine reservist
Rank: Corporal
Job: Security detail for Lt. Col. Roger Machut, 6th Engineer Support Battalion



---


ON THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD, central Iraq - Cpl. Tiffany Carlson doesn't want the war to end. She's having too much fun, riding around the desert with a powerful machine gun, sitting on a box of grenades.


"I don't want to go home," Carlson says. "I like it here. I'm having fun."


She volunteered to be part of the personal security team for Lt. Col. Roger Machut, who is in charge of 6th Engineer Support Battalion.


Carlson handles the M240 Gulf machine gun, the biggest weapon on the six-person security team.


"I asked for it," she says. "I wanted a big gun. I just like to fire it."


Carlson sits on a box of grenades when she rides in a Humvee so she can see over the roof. The machine gun is mounted on a tripod.


"When it has the tripod on it, there's not that much of a kick to it," she says. "But it's pretty hard."


Her shoulder gets bruised after about 100 shots.


"With the tripod on it, it's very accurate," she says. "I get a lot of adrenaline rushes when I think something is gonna happen, whenever I see a truck of Iraqis."


Traveling north toward Baghdad, the route is lined with Iraqi children. But Carlson has to keep the gun pointed near them.


"I always aim in," she says. "I got a brief that they could have grenades or stuff like that. I'm at war. I don't want to shoot kids, but I think it's better them than me."


Carlson, from Vancouver, Wash., has a pair of sisters in the Army: Shauna Carlson and Taunya Carlson, who are 25-year-old twins.




"I don't know where they are," Carlson says. "One, I believe, is in Kuwait. The other, I believe, is in Germany. I haven't talked to them in a while."


Carlson joined the Marines 2 years ago because she didn't want to just stay home after high school.


"I decided to join the Marine Corps," she says. "Plus, I wanted to stay in shape and have a challenge. I wanted to get stuff done. I heard other branches are kinda lazy."


Carlson was not receiving a lot of letters during the first part of her stay in the region, but that all changed after word of her empty mail box got back to Portland, Ore., radio personality Lars Larson, who mentioned her name on the air. Since then, she has received mail just about every other day.


"I've gotten about 20 letters in the last two weeks," she says. "They say they are glad that I'm helping out."


Carlson, a Marine reservist, manages a retail store in Portland and wants to become a dress designer. "I'm thinking I want to go to school as soon as I get back," she says. "I want to design my own clothes."


She plans to go to Clark College in Vancouver and then transfer to the University of Washington. She's pretty sure she has a boyfriend back home.


"As far as I know, I think I do," she says. "But I haven't gotten a letter, so I have no idea what's going on."


But she has a new perspective on men as the only female in her squad.


"You learn how to live how guys live," she says. "When I first joined the Marine Corps, it was kinda tough because of the things they say, but now I'm one of the guys. I see how they think pretty much now. They like to play. Everybody in my squad is like a family now. We've gotten really close, and I don't want it to end."




Sgt. Chris Dahle, 28, her squad leader, says Carlson is "extremely motivated."


"She's having a good time. I never have to worry about her not doing her job or not being motivated. . . . I have no doubts she can do her job on the machine gun," he says. ". . . She's got a huge heart. I view her as something of a little sister, as I would view the other squad members as brothers."




The only negative comes from the reaction of some other Marines or soldiers.


"She gets a lot of attention from other men," Dahle says. "They'll come up and say, `Hey, wow, that's a pretty big gun. You know how to handle that thing?' I think it's a little insulting to her and a little insulting to the squad. She wouldn't be on that thing if she couldn't handle it."



(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)


Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Thu, Apr. 17, 2003

JOEY COLEMAN - Panama City, FL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Joey Coleman
Hometown: Panama City, Fla.
Age: 20
Branch: Marines
Rank: Lance Corporal
Job: Heavy equipment operator





---


CAMP CHESTY, central Iraq - Lance Cpl. Joey Coleman waits outside a Navy surgical hospital. His right hand hangs limp, swollen to twice its normal size.


"My right hand is my life," says Coleman, who is right handed. "It's my biggest fear, if anything happens to my right hand. I just don't want any scar tissue."


Coleman, 20, a Marine reserve, is studying to become a cartoonist. He smashed his hand into a rock six days earlier when he jumped into a hole after a mortar shell landed about 10 meters from him.


"I'm starting to get some numbness in my fingers, but that's about it," Coleman says. "They don't know what's wrong with it. Now, they think it's more of an infection."


Coleman, of Panama City, Fla., was guarding a Cobra helicopter at a base near Baghdad when the mortar round landed.


"As soon as it hit, it was a reaction," he says. "I just dived into my hole. I think God saved my life. I had my sergeant check the back of my flak jacket to make sure I didn't have any shrapnel in there."




After the explosion, he had to stay in the hole to make sure nobody was approaching his line.


"It's war," he says. "You can't let things like that bother you. I just went right back to what I was doing. You can't stop what you are doing. You gotta keep moving."


Coleman is a heavy equipment operator, but he's been used mainly for security. "Now, when I hear explosions or mortar rounds going off, I get weary about things," he says. "You start hearing noises, and you wonder if it's mortar or not."


He hasn't fired his weapon, but he's faced fire from civilians.


"With a lot of the pot shots we are taking, there are too many civilians around," he says. "They take a couple of pot shots, and they are gone. A lot of times you can't fire. They don't want you firing into a crowd because you want to keep peace with the civilians."




Coleman is a student at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Tampa, Fla.


"People say my stuff is like Garfield," he says. "It's definitely funny stuff. I'm not into the Japanese animation stuff."


He wants to work for Nickelodeon and eventually become self-employed with his own cartoon.


Coleman joined the Marine Corps when he was 19, following in the footsteps of his stepfather, Patrick McKenna.


"To me, it's the best," Coleman says. "The fewer the people, the harder it is. I just figured I'd go Marine Corps."


Coleman has been in Iraq for about three weeks. He's been in the Middle East for two months.


"It's been a good experience for me because you'll appreciate America a lot more," he says. "It's an experience nobody should have to live through. It's never pretty, never a nice thing. But it's something we have to do. I think it's a good thing that all these locals are so happy. It makes me happy about what we are doing."


---



(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Thu, Apr. 17, 2003

CHARMAIN JONES - Houston, Tx.
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Charmain Jones
Hometown: Houston, Tx.
Age: 27
Branch: Marines
Rank: Sergeant
Job: Electrician





---


CAMP VIPER, southern Iraq - Sgt. Charmain Jones is sure about one thing: Her children are getting spoiled rotten.


Jones and her husband, Sgt. Terrance Jones, are Marines stationed in Iraq. Their three children - Demetrice, 4, Michael, 2, and Natasha, 6 months - are staying with their grandparents, Johnny and Melondy Jones, in Bradenton, Fla.


"I don't think they miss me at all," Jones says, smiling. "They are with their grandparents. They are getting away with murder."


Jones, 27, of Houston, is an electrician with the 6th Engineer Support Battalion. Her husband helps build runways with another unit. They met in the Marines in 1999.


"He's at the Air Force base, like 35 minutes from Camp Coyote," she says. "I saw him once when I was at Coyote. I was happy. We had been separated for a month or a month and a half. I like playing with my kids and my husband. My husband and I are like two big kids."


She has been in Iraq since Feb. 6.


"Am I sick of it?" she says. "It's tolerable, but I can't wait to go home."


Jones joined the Marines seven years ago, for a $2,000 bonus and a chance to go to school. She is scheduled to get out Dec. 2, and says she doesn't plan to re-enlist.


This is her third deployment. She has been to Bolivia and Greece.


She can't wait to see her children; her smile grows stronger as she talks about them.


"Demetrice loves her grandpa," Jones says. "And their grandma loves children. I'm sure they are getting spoiled. But they are in good hands. Demetrice is sneaky. She tries to get away with everything. And my son, he is rough. He likes to pick with her, to make her mad, just because he knows he can do it. She'll start crying and go and tell my husband and me. My son thinks it's funny, and my husband thinks it's funny."


Her smile fades. As much as she wants to see her children, she's prepared for a rough homecoming.


"I think I'll be heartbroken when I see them," she says. "I know how my daughter was when I left her for the first time for three months. When I came back, she looked at me like, `Who is this lady, waking me up at 6 o'clock in the morning?' She didn't know who I was. So I kind of expect it."


---

(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Wed, Apr. 16, 2003

CHILDREN -- Iraq
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



ON THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD, Iraq - Hundreds of Iraqi children stand by the side of the road, waving at the U.S. troops.


As thousands of Marines and soldiers head north toward Baghdad in massive convoys that snake to the horizon, the children line the route through the desert.


Some hold empty water bottles, begging for a drink.


Many just smile, some with looks of apprehension, others with looks of joy. Most hold up Iraqi money, wanting to trade for American cash.


The children are dirty and look tired, and almost all of them are barefoot on the hot sand and gravel.


They use deliberate gestures, trying to communicate.


A little boy in a white flowing gown, tattered and flowing in the breeze, taps his mouth and then pats his belly, over and over. Others just hold out both hands, palms up, hopeful and eager, looking desperate.


Most are out in the open desert, and you can't be certain where they live. You search the horizon and see a small brick hut, off in the distance, the only building in sight, but there's no other sign of life, just the waving children. Only a handful have parents with them.


The trucks drive by, about 45 mph, and the children are left in a cloud of dust. At times, on the wrong side of the wind, they become almost invisible.




Sometimes there are so many military vehicles on one road at one time that it turns into a massive traffic jam, heading toward Baghdad.


The trucks come to a stop and you can hear the voices of the children: "Mistah!"


"Money, money."


In one stretch through a small city, a place that was the site of a nasty firefight just a few days earlier, about 80 children stand by the side of the road, holding up blue boxes of Iraqi cigarettes.


The Marines call it gasoline alley: Every time you go through there at night, you get filled up with lead.


But daylight brings out the children.


Four children are selling bottles of Pepsi, and a man is selling bottles of whiskey out of his coat.


A boy holds up a Playboy magazine, a gift, apparently, from an American soldier. The Marines laugh and shower him with candy as he flashes them pictures of pinups. "Smart kid," somebody says.


The Marines have been told not to give the children any food or water. It creates chaos, they have been told, because the children swarm the trucks. As the Marines say, if you give a child a bottle of water, there's no way to be sure he will be the one who gets to drink it.


But you can't help it.


Staff Sgt. Jeremy Westlake, of Charlie Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion, sees a tender little girl in a purple dress. Barefoot. Sad eyes. Dark hair. She looks like an angel, full of innocence.


He tosses her a piece of candy and it whizzes by her head. He feels bad but he is glad it didn't hit her.


He's a hard-charging Marine, an expert with just about every gun in the corps. And he never shows a soft side. Not until now.


The next day, Westlake sees the girl again, on the trip back south to Camp Viper, and he can't get her out of his head.


"How do I go about adopting an Iraqi?" he asks. "I could put her in my sea bag and take her home with me. She's just adorable."




A boy stands outside an empty brick building, about the size of a two-car garage. It doesn't have windows or a door, just a flat roof that bakes in the sunshine. He wears a brown shirt, torn at the bottom. He stands without moving, as a giant convoy of Marines goes past. He holds up his left thumb and smiles. I point at him and he smiles even harder.


Is he hungry?


Where are his parents?


What will become of him?


What will become of his country?


He's about 3 years old, with dark eyes and a big smile, just like my youngest child.


Our convoy keeps moving. Keeps pushing forward. The boy is long gone, but I keep thinking about him, wishing I could do something more.


We keep driving. Keep seeing more children. After a while, it gets so sad, so depressing, I can't look anymore. I can't even wave.


---


(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Wed, Apr. 16, 2003

SAMIA NAKHOUL - Beirut, Lebanon and PAUL PASQUALE - London
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Paul Pasquale
Hometown: London
Age: 36
Job: Reuters cameraman



---


Name: Samia Nakhoul
Hometown: Beirut, Lebanon
Age: 42
Job: Reuters bureau chief



---


CAMP CHESTY, central Iraq - Paul Pasquale lies on a gurney in a Navy surgical hospital, covered with wounds and bandages, looking like a shark-attack survivor.


Pasquale, 36, of London is a cameraman for the Reuters news agency. He was on the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad when it was hit by a shell fired from a U.S. tank.


He has wounds on his cheeks, nose, hands, arms, down his side, across his chest, over his hip and down to his feet.


He lifts up the sheets to show the wounds on his legs. Some look like little punctures, while others snake across his side in a bizarre pattern, as if a child had scribbled over his body with a marker.


"But I've still got my testicles," he says and laughs.


Samia Nakhoul, 42, a writer for Reuters, was injured along with Pasquale. Two other journalists were killed in the attack.


Thirteen journalists have died during the Iraq war, some in accidents, some from bombs and bullets. No incident drew more attention than the Palestine Hotel shelling.


Nakhoul and Pasquale do not assign blame or express regret.


"I've been doing it for 13 years," Nakhoul says. "I like to chase the story. I don't regret it. This is part of the deal."




She is peppered with cuts on her cheek, forehead, nose and chin.


A piece of shrapnel sliced into her forehead and settled in her head.


"I had brain surgery four days ago to clean it up," she says.


She doesn't know the extent of the damage. They'll have to do tests, she says.


She opens her mouth and a nurse takes her temperature, as another inserts an IV stem.


"Don't bend your arm," he says.


She squeezes her eyes in pain.


At the same time, doctors work on Pasquale.


He tried to carry a friend out of the rubble, but his hands were injured.


"I just crawled out," he says. "I wasn't feeling too great, put it that way. I didn't feel I was dead, but I felt like I was on the way out."


He has been in Baghdad for six months. He had the option to leave, but he wanted to stay.


"I was running part of the operation, and I employed a lot of Iraqis; a lot of fixers, a lot of people like that. For me to … leave the work to the Iraqis, I just couldn't do that," he says.


He is asked whether he will cover the next war.


"I don't know," he says. "Ask me in a year."


---


(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)


Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Tue, Apr. 15, 2003

JOHN ALVARADO -- Peoria, IL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: John Alvarado
Hometown: Peoria, Ill.
Age: 20
Branch: Marines
Rank: Lance Corporal
Job: Combat engineer




---


SOUTHERN IRAQ - Lance Cpl. John Alvarado misses French fries, phone calls, and drinking beer and tequila. He also misses ordering pizza.


"And I don't even like pizza," Alvarado says. "I just wish I had the chance to order some."


Alvarado, a combat engineer in Charlie Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion, which has set up a camp in southern Iraq, also misses drinking coffee on his porch at home in Peoria, Ill.


Out in the desert, he drinks coffee warmed on a makeshift stove - an empty ammunition case filled with diesel fuel and sand. The top is covered with wire. He drinks the coffee out of an aluminum canteen cup, sitting in the sand.


He misses seeing the sun rise over the Illinois River. Alvarado is a maintenance worker at the Illinois Valley Yacht and Canoe Club, and he used to get there an hour early every morning to watch the sunrise. Some of his co-workers just sent him a care package with cookies and cards. "It's a tight little family there," Alvarado says.




He misses the smell of a woman's perfume. Alvarado dated a girl named Nicole for about three weeks before he left for Kuwait, but a few weeks ago he got a Dear John letter.


"She was so hot, awesome, smoking," he says. "I knew it wasn't going to last. She had an ex-boyfriend, and it was only a matter of time before she went back to him. I got a letter from her that said she really liked me, but she wanted to go back to him. I knew it was coming. I knew she wasn't the one. She was just fun to hang out with for a while."


He misses smoking cigarettes. His stash ran out four days ago, but the people in his squad try to hook him up. They smoke one down and then let him finish it. He normally smokes a pack a day.


"I don't know if it's the habit or the nicotine," he says. "In the Marine Corps, you have a lot of down time, and it's something to do."


This might sound strange, but he misses traveling. His mom, Roberta Alvarado, works as a flight attendant for United Airlines, and he gets to fly for free. He's been to Hong Kong, Germany, London and Hawaii.


When a Marine recruiter tried to use a sales pitch promoting the travel and a chance to see the world, Alvarado laughed, "Nah, I get to travel already."


But he doesn't feel like he's really seen Kuwait or Iraq.


"It's different traveling with the Marine Corps because you don't get to see anything," he says. "You just see it through the back of a truck."




He made a spur-of-the-moment decision to join the Marine Reserves. "I didn't know what I wanted, and I figured I might as well join the Marines," Alvarado says.


He misses his spare time.


"Here, the only time off you have is at night. I'd like some time during the day to read a magazine and not read it under a red lens," he says.


He misses his dog, a fat Dalmatian named Cupid.


"She used to have a heart on her nose but grew more spots so now people can't see the heart," he says, smiling. "They think it's stupid that her name is Cupid now."


He misses eating a meal, usually once a week, with his mother. "She's always traveling so she doesn't have normal meals," he says. "She'll throw a bunch of leftovers together, some of it from her travels, and make a crazy casserole."


He already knows what he'll miss about Iraq.


He'll miss sitting on post, late at night, and looking at the sky on a cloudless night. "They have some of the best stars here," he says. "The sky is so bright. There are no trees so you see the whole sky."


He'll miss the sunsets, too, and his comrades.


"I'm so close to these people," he says. "It's like having 13 best friends."


---



(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Tue, Apr. 15, 2003

TIMOTHY EDWARDS - Fremont, Wisc.
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Timothy Edwards
Hometown: Fremont, Wis.
Age: 24
Branch: Marines
Rank: Lance Corporal
Job: Driver


---


CAMP VIPER, southern Iraq - Lance Cpl. Timothy Edwards wrote his nickname on his helmet: Preacher.


Edwards, 24, of Fremont, Wis., is a youth minister and plans to become a pastor.


"I get a lot of mail from the kids I work with," Edwards says. "That's the stuff that cheers me up the most. The kids remember me and tell me how good I was. It makes me feel good about what I was doing.


"I was working at summer camp this last summer," Edwards says. "One of my old pastors who had transferred to a different church was looking for a youth director. He knew I was planning on going to the seminary. He wanted to know if I'd like to get my feet wet and wondered if I wanted to be their youth director for a couple of years. Firsthand experience is even better than getting an education. I was trying it out. I really like it."


He went to college thinking he was going to work as a chemist, but he loved working with youngsters.


"When I graduated from college, I was undecided what to do," Edwards says. "I kinda wanted to follow the rest of my family. My dad was a Marine, and my uncle was a Marine, and grandpa was a Marine. I figured, `What the heck, I'll try it.' "


His grandfather fought in World War II, while his father and uncle were in Vietnam.


"They didn't say a lot about their experiences until the day I got called up," Edwards says. "All of a sudden, they started telling me a whole lot of stuff that happened to them. They gave me little tips of advice: Keep your head between your legs and don't be afraid to get up and do stuff."


Edwards is a truck driver assigned to Charlie Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion. He drives everything from 7-ton trucks to dump trucks.


"These new trucks are kinda like driving a car," Edwards says. "It's all push button. It's pretty nice. The old trucks are a little trickier. Stuff breaks, and you have to be semi-mechanically oriented. You can fix it."




He says that in Iraq he daydreams about war scenarios.


"What would I do if a 12-year-old kid were running after you? Would you shoot him? I've thought of hundreds of outcomes," he says. "Some are good; some are bad. It could go wrong; it could go right."


Edwards tries to maintain a Christian walk in a place where profanity is as common as sand.


"I can't judge other people for swearing," Edwards says. "Sometimes, it's just the way they vent their frustrations."


---


(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)


Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Fri, Apr. 18, 2003

Marines: 'Bonnie with 1,000 Clydes' on the front lines
By ANDREA GERLIN
Philadelphia Inquirer

BAGHDAD - At times, I felt like Bonnie with 1,000 Clydes.

Traipsing some 500 miles all over Iraq with the First Battalion, Fourth Marines, and stepping, deliberately or accidentally, into one gunfight after another, I might well have been.

The Marine unit I was with was on or very near the front lines for three weeks during the U.S.-led charge to Baghdad. It set off from a tent city in northern Kuwait in mid-March and settled at a cigarette factory in east Baghdad on Wednesday.

The road to Baghdad was paved with dirt, and home was usually a bug-infested mud hole. Most nights it was a different hole because the battalion, like nomads or gypsies, was constantly on the move. If it stayed in one place too long, it became a target of a ragtag but bravely persistent force of Iraqi solders and irregulars.

It was at Camp Matilda in northern Kuwait, where journalists embedded with U.S. forces linked up with their units, that I had my first doubts about what I was getting myself into. During yet another briefing about chemical and biological preparedness, a Marine spokesman advised us to write our blood types and Social Security numbers on our body armor and boots.

When we left for Iraq, less than a week later, calm and focus prevailed. The Marines had a buoyant sense of American optimism, mixed with the kind of confidence that sometimes turns to arrogance. There was also a sense that history was being made and, as a journalist, I viewed it as my job to turn in the proverbial "first rough draft." What would be the price?

The first leg, a 30-hour trip in an amphibious assault vehicle, was about as difficult and bone-jarringly uncomfortable as travel can be. By the time we reached our destination in southern Iraq about 100 miles from our start, known as Assembly Area Spartan, my back was sore and aching, a feeling made worse by the extra 30 pounds of body armor and Kevlar helmet I carted around. We had passed nothing more menacing than Bedouins and their camels, but the breakdown of 20 percent of the battalion's amphibious fleet put everyone on edge. The battalion commander did not like the idea of taking these land-challenged amphibious vehicles into a combat area.

At the next stop in Nasiriyah on March 23, war's bloody cost suddenly filled the air above us and changed the relaxed and confident mood. A steady stream of helicopters went clattering back and forth over our post. They were carrying more than 30 dead and wounded Marines who had encountered surprisingly strong Iraqi resistance. Eleven Marines had been taken prisoner.

Officers now berated young Marines who had been hanging off the tops of their vehicles, like surfers cruising the beachfront in convertibles. Suddenly the war seemed to be going very badly.

The next day it was our turn to make the run through Nasiriyah and what came to be known as Ambush Alley. Even before we got to that notorious stretch of road, the rear of our convoy was ambushed by gunfire. It happened just as I was transmitting a story about the Marines' reaction to the bad news of the casualties of the day before. I was lying prone in the back of a moving humvee, juggling my satellite phone and computer keyboard.

We hurried to a garbage dump that was the staging area for the trip through Nasiriyah. A feeling of dread pervaded the air, and flies by the hundreds buzzed around the inside of our amphibious assault vehicle. As the convoy crossed through the hostile town and paramilitary forces opened up on us, the drivers had their gas pedals hard to the floor.

With bullets whizzing overhead, I tried to work out the best angle to position myself so that if a round came through the vehicle's light armor, it would either miss me or hit one of the plates in my protection vest.

Then I realized that it was impossible to predict where a bullet might come from. I took a few deep breaths and hoped for the best. I understood better why so many Marines had gotten baptized during their last Sunday church service before the war.

That day's drive was frightening and exhausting. Wherever we went, we seemed to go for a short while, then stop and wait.

Doing that in the middle of Nasiriyah did not seem like a good idea to me, but we did it several times. Another vehicle had broken down in the heat of the battle and ours had to stop and tow it, to the intense relief of the occupants of the ailing vehicle.

Along the way to Ash Shahtrah, our next destination, we saw the bodies of Iraqi fighters and unlucky civilians caught in the cross fire by the roadside. Some were still alive, if only barely, and there was not much that a running band of invaders could do for them other than request a local ambulance. The full awfulness of war lay before our eyes.

Sleep-deprived and perhaps still shocked by the sight, I was startled when a senior enlisted man decided our next stop was a good occasion to shift two of my bags from his humvee to the vehicle in which I was riding. When the new driver told me to mount the bags on the outside of "his" vehicle because he didn't want them inside - even though the vehicle was half-empty - I refused to do it until we reached a safer place. I didn't want to get killed making myself a choice target.

I am glad I had refused his request. It was at that stop that four enlisted men captured an Iraqi hiding in tall grass and carrying a sniper's rifle.


continued.........

[thedrifter]

As we stepped out of the vehicle at Ash Shahtrah a few hours later, the local Iraqi militia welcomed the battalion with the sound of "pop, pop, pop" and little puffs of white smoke rising from the grass in an adjacent field. I had just gotten on the phone with an editor in Washington, whom I and a photographer called after deciding that the war was too dangerous to cover and it was time for us to leave, even if only a week had passed. Fortunately, nearby gunfire and the abrupt end to our conversation sounded persuasive if he begged to differ.

The battalion's executive officer, Philadelphia native Maj. David Holahan, told us that he couldn't guarantee anyone's safety in a war zone, but we weren't yet facing a hopeless situation. We told Holahan we wanted to get on the next helicopter out. One was due to arrive shortly to pick up some injured refugees.

I really didn't want to leave, even if staying meant sacrificing my safety. As the war grew more intense, it seemed more important to cover it, and I didn't want to abandon my post. I knew the risks now more than ever, and I felt defeated either way. Before leaving home in February, I had gotten my affairs in order, taken an inventory of my assets and life insurance and written a will for the first time. At the time I didn't think it would be useful to anyone for many years. Now I wasn't so sure.

Sitting on a bare dirt slope, I used my satellite phone to call my fiance, who I knew would be home in London glued to the news. I couldn't bear to punish him any longer, but I couldn't bear to leave. The conflict was tearing at me. If I stayed and died, would he hate me for my decision?

No, he said, he wouldn't. He told me he had been checking my e-mail and had read the messages pouring in from the parents, wives and siblings of men with the First Battalion, Fourth Marines. He said they appreciated the journalists' presence and that people out there were counting on me. I should leave if I thought it best, he said, but he would understand and respect my decision if I stayed.

My head was still telling me to leave, my heart to stay. I am the kind of rational thinker who usually listens to her head, but in that moment I took a leap of faith and listened to my heart. The helicopter failed to arrive and the next day, after we came through the mess that was Ash Shahtrah following an all-night battle, I told Holahan to cancel my request for the helicopter.

It was likely to get worse, the major told me at regular junctures. In some ways it did, but it never seemed as bad as that first series of firefights. The battalion began to realize that it could handle conventional warfare with the Iraqis pretty effectively but guerrilla tactics were more challenging. Most of the second half of our march north turned on reducing the unconventional threats from such paramilitary tactics as ambushes, small-arms fire, stray rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars. As March turned to April, we traveled through marshy eastern towns, and, in the growing heat, insects joined the attack on us, vicious and unrelenting. Though Saddam Hussein's regime possessed little in the way of airplanes, one of the corpsmen dubbed the attacking horde of gnats, flies and mosquitoes the Iraqi air force. The force of bloodsucking bugs was overwhelming; nothing repulsed them. Hygiene was another American vulnerability. We were living in the dirt without running water, a recipe for disease and infection, despite having been prescribed prophylactic doses of the antibiotic doxycycline. We washed our hands and faces and brushed our teeth with water from canteens, supplemented by hand wipes and antibacterial hand cleanser. But we never felt clean. The morning before we entered Saddam City, I was lucky to have my first shower in nearly four weeks, using a five-gallon shower bag that one of the battalion doctors had brought. For a few hours, the dirt, sweat and dead skin were gone.

As the only woman with this battalion of 1,000 men, I encountered particular difficulty in one aspect of hygiene: answering the call of nature with some privacy. In the open desert, this was often impossible. I would scout for a shrub or natural obstacle, though in some environments, such as areas with land-mine risks, I didn't want to wander too far. My worst nightmare was lived out by one unfortunate Marine in the battalion, who was evacuated by helicopter after shrapnel from a live round struck him in the buttocks as he was tending his business in the field.

Over time, I learned to find a young private or corporal on guard duty near a good obstacle and consult him about my choice of location. If anyone should disturb me, I asked, "Please shoot them." Unfailingly polite, the young Marines always responded with an enthusiastic, "Yes, ma'am!"

As a group, the young infantrymen - a word that officers point out derives from "infant" - were a delightful mixture of capability and immaturity. A few of them enjoyed playing jokes on me when they discovered that I was still learning to distinguish incoming artillery and mortars from outgoing. Since I had superior access to information about troop movements, I could retaliate by telling them to pack up because we were leaving in 15 minutes. They believed me as many times as I believed them, and word spread among them like wildfire.

Most Marines get their news from what's known as the "Lance Corporal Underground," a group of privates and corporals who trade and embellish the latest gossip.

Word had spread on the underground that Jennifer Lopez was dead. Not true, I said. Bet you didn't know, soldiers confided back, the late Mr. Rogers had been a Marine sniper. They had heard that on the underground as well. Back home checked for me: No truth to that one either.



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Son helps to finish fight dad began

By John Tuohy
john.tuohy@indystar.com
April 20, 2003


One could say Marine Corps Lt. Col. Charles Haislip and his son Shawn Haislip have teamed up to help topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Dad fought in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Son is there now.


"I tell him that he's over there to finish the job I started," Charles Haislip, 51, said.

Marine Cpl. Shawn Haislip, 24, a graduate of Lawrence Central High School, is a computer operator with the 1st Marine Division. The reservist was called away from his job at a heating and ventilation company to active duty on Jan. 29. He shipped off to the Persian Gulf region on Feb. 10.

Six weeks into his tour, Haislip got some good news: His wife, Kacy, gave birth to their second son, Brady Michael, on March 21.

"He's more anxious than ever to return now," Charles Haislip said.

Haislip spoke with his son last on April 12, after Shawn's unit had moved into Baghdad.

"He's tired and hungry," Charles Haislip said. "All the things you'd expect from a fast-moving Marine unit."

Shawn Haislip said the Iraqis so far have been mostly friendly.

"He said it felt like for the most part they wanted us there," Charles Haislip said.

Shawn Haislip joined the Marines when he was 21 -- not right after high school like many.

"I didn't want to push him," said Charles Haislip, a 29-year Marine veteran who works at the Reserve Center in Indianapolis. "But one day he saw a show about boot camp, and the next day he was at the recruitment office.

"Now he says he's following his dad's footsteps."

Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Marine flies home to the many, proud
Columbus native was wounded in Iraq

By Cathy Kightlinger
cathy.kightlinger@indystar.com
April 19, 2003


Indiana Marine Sgt. Jacob Hopkins has exchanged a world full of death for one centered on new life.

Hopkins, 22, a native of Columbus, was injured by friendly fire about 75 miles outside Baghdad in late March.

Shrapnel from a mortar round landed about 10 feet from him, shattering the tibia and fibula bones in his leg.

He was awarded the Purple Heart and promoted from corporal to sergeant.

And then he was sent home.

Hopkins arrived Friday evening on a Delta Air Lines flight to a cheering crowd at Indianapolis International Airport.

"It tickles me to death to see people clapping," Hopkins said. "I'm proud to be an American, never prouder."

Other airport patrons joined his flag-waving family members in the welcome, which also included tight hugs and a few tears.

"I'm glad it's over and relieved he's finally coming home," said Ken Brown, 43, Hopkins' father-in-law. "Even though he's wounded, he made it back alive, unlike some of the other troops over there."

Other family members on hand were Hopkins' father, Joe Hopkins, his cousin, Kelly Wise, and Brown's wife, Cheryl.

"I wish my parents were alive to see this," Joe Hopkins, 45, said of his only child's homecoming. "They thought he (Jacob) was special."

Hopkins' mother, Debbie Hopkins, and wife, Amanda, who is four months pregnant, accompanied him on the flight from California.

Early in the week, the two traveled to Maryland, where Hopkins made a short stop.

They saw him for only three hours before he was flown to a hospital in California.

The two drove back to Indiana on Sunday, only to board a plane Monday to meet him in California.

Joe Hopkins said he paid more for a one-way ticket for his son's return to Indiana ($324) than he did for round-trip tickets for his wife and daughter-in-law ($281 each).

It seems to him, he said, that the government should have been paying or the airline should have offered a discount.

"I would have sold my house to bring him home," he said. "But here's my son getting injured . . . He should have flown home for free."

Jacob Hopkins was last in Columbus at Christmas.

He was deployed to the Mideast in January.

The thin, soft-spoken Marine took a few moments at the airport to describe how it felt being wounded.

"As soon as it went off, it took my legs out from under me," he said. "I didn't know what to think. I was lying down and I (thought), 'Wait, I can't feel my legs'. . . I was screaming for help."

Amanda Hopkins, 19, said the prognosis is that her husband will be walking in about six months, which would come shortly after the expected birth of their first child.

"He's been kissing my belly," she said, as she and other family members prepared to return to Columbus with her husband.

"He tells the baby 'good morning,' and 'good night' every day."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Call Star reporter Cathy Kightlinger at 1-317-444-6040.

Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Fri, Apr. 11, 2003

JODY STENQUIST - Pontiac, Mich.
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Jody Stenquist
Hometown: Pontiac, Mich.
Age: 29
Branch: Navy
Rank: Petty officer first class
Job: Corpsman at Fleet Hospital Number 3 in southern Iraq.




---


CAMP VIPER, southern Iraq - Petty Officer 1st Class Jody Stenquist says the doctors are working magic.


"It's amazing what they are doing with the limited supplies we have," says Stenquist, a 29-year-old corpsman at Fleet Hospital Number 3 in southern Iraq. "We aren't getting one or two patients at a time. We are getting five, six or seven at a time."


This is the first time a fleet hospital has been set up in enemy territory, and on this recent day the troops are still working through some of the bugs.


"We don't have the normal things you would have," says Stenquist, of Pontiac, Mich.


"We don't have Band-Aids. We are using gauze and things like that. I guess they didn't come. We still have containers with gear in it that haven't been opened yet. Some of our equipment is 20 years old. … We didn't know how to work the suction machines. We are cutting tubing off other things to connect to suction machines."


Despite the obstacles of setting up a hospital in the desert, they have made it work. Last week, two ambulances rolled up, unannounced, with seven patients.


"We had no idea they were coming," Stenquist says.


The American service members were hurt in a motor vehicle accident; their injuries included a broken femur, a broken back and head trauma.


"We were pretty excited to talk to them to see how the war was going, to find out where they were," Stenquist says.


This is the first time Stenquist has been in a combat zone, and she's been frustrated because she doesn't have any sense of the big picture. She doesn't know what's going on.


"We get very little intel here," she says. "It was great to be able to talk to these guys, to let them know we are working our butts off here too."


Stenquist works on a casualty receiving team, pulling eight-hour shifts every day.


When an ambulance arrives at the hospital, she meets the rig outside. Security guards check the Iraqi patients and she does a quick triage.


"We can't bring anybody in until they are checked by security," Stenquist says. "Security checks them before we even touch them. None of our people are allowed weapons. The trick is keeping a clear mind. We are getting all variety of nationalities. We don't treat the patients; we treat the injuries. We will treat anyone who is injured."


They have seen everything from multiple gunshot wounds to motor vehicle accidents.


"A lot of the junior corpsman are amazed at the types of injuries we are getting with the limited amount of equipment we have," she says. "We're just making things up. We are making magic."




Stenquist grew up in Pontiac, Mich., and her family lives in Auburn Hills. She attended Eastern Michigan University to study nursing.


"I was only 17 when I went, and I wasn't sure if that's what I wanted to do," she says. "I figured joining the military and getting 12 weeks of school to be a corpsman and having that medical experience would let me know if that's what I wanted to do. I've just enjoyed it and stayed."


She has been on active duty for almost 10 years and plans to retire after 20.


"We can do everything like a physician assistant," she says. "We are doing sutures, procedures, putting in chest tubes, intubating patients, pushing morphine."


For Stenquist, the only real negative is being away from her daughter, Victoria Tison, who turned 1 on Thursday. Victoria is staying with her father, Blake Tison, in Pensacola, Fla.


"It was really hard," Stenquist says. "I spent the last seven years with the Marines and I came to shore duty to have a baby and finish school. It was harder than I thought it was gonna be to leave her. I think it's harder on me than her."



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Fri, Apr. 11, 2003

SIDNEY MENDOZA - San Jose, CA
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Sidney Mendoza
Hometown: San Jose, Calif
Age: 26
Branch: Marines
Rank: Lance Corporal
Job: Combat engineer




---


CAMP VIPER, southern Iraq - Lance Cpl. Sidney Mendoza was in a truck moving through the Iraqi desert when he heard a loud bang.


"I guess we went over a land mine," Mendoza says. "I remember thinking somebody shot at me. That was the wildest moment, because I didn't know what it was. I was ready to shoot back, at whoever it was."


Mendoza is the A gunner for a .50 caliber machine gun. It's his job to load the gun, spot where the rounds go and adjust fire.


"All I remember was I was wanting to get up there, load the babies in on the .50 cal and shoot at whoever was shooting, so they wouldn't be shooting at us anymore," Mendoza says.


Mendoza, 26, from San Jose, Calif., is a combat engineer assigned to Charlie Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion.


He joined the Marine Reserves after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America.


"At that point in time, I started to think, `You know what, America has given me so much,' " he says. "And I decided to join the Marines."


Mendoza was born in Nicaragua. His family moved to San Jose when he was 3.


"My parents have been able to live the American dream," he says. "I'm really grateful for America and all the opportunity that's been given to me."


He became a U.S. citizen when he was 19. "That was the proudest day of my life," he says.


Mendoza lived in San Jose for 20 years. He went to Silver Creek High School and then graduated from San Jose State University with a degree in marketing. He decided to become a pastor and spent a year at a seminary.


"I ended up dropping out because it got expensive," he says. He bounced from job to job, unable to find the right fit. He tried sales, but didn't like it.


"Right before I got activated, I was working with a friend of my dad's in Arizona," he says. "He does income taxes for the Hispanic community, and he opens up franchises. I was going through the process of having my own location to do income taxes, to learn the ropes. Then I was gonna open an income tax businesses, and then I would get a cut from each business. But that plan went out the door for now."




Mendoza married his longtime girlfriend, Martha Garcia, one week before he was deployed. Her father, Pastor Hugo Garcia, performed the ceremony in a chapel in Oceanside, Calif., not far from Camp Pendleton.


"It wasn't as cool as I'd like," he says. "I didn't have any friends or family there."


The conditions in the desert are rough, but he tries to keep a positive attitude.


"I try to look at the bright side," he says. "I have food every day. I have shelter. I'm alive. I'm just doing my job. You can't be out here and think, I hate this, every day. It works on you. You learn to adjust and do your job. I have no fear of dying. If I die, I know I'm going to heaven. But nobody wants to die. I want to go back home and start a family."


---



(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Thu, Apr. 10, 2003

MICHAEL SIMMONS - St. Louis, Missouri
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Michael Simmons
Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri
Age: 23
Branch: Marines
Rank: Sergeant
Job: Vehicle commander for a light armored vehicle


---


CAMP VIPER, Iraq - Marine Sgt. Michael Simmons lies on his back, on a bed in Fleet Hospital Number 3 in southern Iraq, with his right arm above his head. His flak jacket, his lucky one, is under the bed.


Simmons calls his wife.


"I have good news and bad news," Simmons says. It's the first time he's talked to her in two months. They've been married nearly a year.


"All right," Amy Simmons says.


"The good news is that I might be coming home soon," he says.


She is thrilled.


"The bad news is that I got shot," he says.


She starts crying.


"It's not that bad," he says.


Simmons, 23, of St. Louis, is a vehicle commander for a light armored vehicle, which has eight wheels and looks like a tank. He is in charge of a driver, a gunner and four scouts on the back, who are armed with M16 rifles.


"We were told we were going to do a humanitarian mission on a small town, about 30 clicks (kilometers) south of Kut," Simmons says. "As we were rolling up there, we got an intelligence report that there may be an ambush up there."


He shrugs and says: "Pretty much every town we roll into, there might be an ambush."


Simmons is assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Light Armor Reconnaissance Battalion, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon, which is based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.


At the start of the war, his platoon raced through the desert without facing much resistance.


"All we saw was sand and camels," he says. "But the farther north we went, every little town would get worse and worse."


South of Kut, they rolled up to a bridge. "It was outside a little podunk town," Simmons says. "I don't even know its name."


The road was barricaded, and they started taking rocket-propelled grenade fire.


"Back up," Simmons screamed to his crew.


They retreated about 200 yards.


"We began immediately engaging on the town," Simmons says. "We'd see little muzzle flashes from the small-arms fire and pretty big muzzle flashes from the rocket-propelled grenades."


The commanding officer called for artillery fire, an airstrike and Cobra helicopters.


An Iraqi tank started shooting guided missiles at his light armored vehicle. By his count, the Iraqis had launched 14 missiles at his LAV over the last two weeks, but nothing ever had reached it.


"I'm the point vehicle, and it usually takes the brunt of the attack," he says. "I've been lucky up to this point."


Until the 15th missile. And then the 16th. The first missile hit the front of the LAV, shattering the driver's periscope; the second hit the smoke grenade launcher, mounted on the turret.


A piece of shrapnel entered Simmons' right wrist, snapping his hand back and severing an artery. He screamed and blood started sputtering out of his wrist.


Simmons looked down, and the smoke grenade launcher was on fire.


"I covered up my wrist and told my driver to back up as fast as he can," Simmons says.




The fire concerned him. They were carrying 40 pounds of explosives.


"Shoot at anything that moves," Simmons screamed to the gunner.


As Simmons was put in a company ambulance, he heard the bombers coming in and the artillery start hitting the town.


"The rest of the battalion rolled up," he says. "They gave me thumbs-up as they went by. They told me they were going to take care of it.


When I was in the field, they sutured it up, not realizing it was an artery. I had a lot of internal bleeding, and my arm swelled up over the next day."


Simmons was taken to the fleet hospital in a helicopter and had two operations. It was the first fleet hospital set up in Iraq, and Simmons was the first U.S. patient.


"I got the royal treatment," he says. "There were 30 nurses and one patient. I was impressed with this place."




Doctors had to make a cut from his hand to the base of his elbow, to let the blood drain out.


"It's all open meat," Simmons says. "I got to look at it. You can see all the tendons and muscles."


He looks at his hand. He's a music buff, a guitar player, and he's been assured that he will regain full use of his hand.


"There was a slight chance that the nerve was severed, but the surgeon assures me that it's just bruised," he says. "It will be upwards of five months until I get full use of my hand again."


Simmons didn't realize how lucky he was until he saw his flak jacket. A piece of shrapnel went through two layers of the vest and penetrated a ballistic plate, but stopped halfway through. It was aimed right for the middle of his sternum.


"I'm keeping that vest," he says. "My colonel came up and asked how I was doing. I said, `Sir, I'm keeping my flak jacket.' He said, `I don't think that will be a problem.'"


----

(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Apr. 09, 2003

YOON RA - Chicago, IL, South Korea
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Yoon Ra
Hometown: Chicago, Ill.
Age: 22
Branch: Marine Corps Reserves
Rank: Corporal
Job: Combat Engineer


---


CAMP VIPER, southern Iraq - Cpl. Yoon Ra is fighting for his country, even if it's not official.


Yoon, who was born in South Korea but grew up in Chicago, is a combat engineer in southern Iraq. He has applied for U.S. citizenship.


"Yeah," he says with a smile. "I'm fighting for a country that I'm not a citizen of. It's not weird, because I was raised in America. The only difference between me being a citizen is the paperwork. I feel like I am an American citizen. I was basically raised here. I have no weird feelings like I'm not fighting for my country."


Yoon, 22, is a Marine reservist stationed with Charlie Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion.


"You can join the military even if you aren't a citizen, but you can't be an officer," Yoon says. "I love working with reservists. Active-duty people put us down, saying we are weekend warriors. But I like seeing how we pull together, and we can accomplish the same mission the same way the active-duty people can."


Yoon was born in Seoul. In 1986, he moved with his family to Chicago. There are better opportunities in the United States, he says.




"My dad wanted us to get schooling here. He brought us over, me and my older sister," he says.


Yoon joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1999 after graduating from high school.


"At that point in my life, I didn't have any goals or focus," he says. "In Korea, every male in the family has to go into the army. My dad, Sang Ra, did serve in the Korean army. He feels every man should do service. My dad wanted me to do the ROTC and the whole officer thing. I wanted to do the enlisted side so I could … learn how to lead."


Back home, Yoon studies animal sciences at the University of Illinois.




When he becomes a U.S. citizen, he will have plenty of support at the swearing-in ceremony. The Marines in his squad have promised to be there.


"We are going to all dress in our blues," he says. "The fact that I'm in the military pushes things through faster. … When I get back, there is a fee and some more paperwork I have to send in. I'd say it will happen within two years."


Yoon could be in for a surprise. Last July, President Bush issued an order making noncitizen troops immediately eligible for citizenship, no longer requiring three years of active service.


---


(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Apr. 09, 2003

MOHAMMED ALSALAHI - San Diego, Iraq
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Mohammed Alsalahi
Hometown: San Diego, born in Iraq
Age: 36
Job: Works for Iraqi Free Officers and Civilian Movement


---


EAST OF NASIRIYAH, Iraq - Mohammed Alsalahi stands outside a U.S. Army hospital, trying to translate for a group of Iraqi men who don't speak English.


"His brother died, and they want the body back," Alsalahi tells an Army nurse, who speaks only English.


But the body has already been buried.


"They want to take him and do Islamic procedures for burial," Alsalahi says.


Alsalahi, 36, of San Diego, works with the Iraqi Free Officers and Civilian Movement, a Washington-based Iraqi opposition group. He was born and raised in Nasiriyah, but he left Iraq eight years ago.


He declined to discuss the exact nature of his business in Iraq.


"We are a peace mission," he says. "We are trying to rebuild the relationship between Iraqi people and the United States. It's been destroyed by Saddam and the Baath Party. The main thing is for people to get rid of Saddam and his regime. I am part of this mission. We are here to participate with the Allies to liberate our country."


He wears camouflage military fatigues and a flak jacket and carries a pistol.


"I left Iraq because of Saddam, because of the situation here," he says. "I come back here to liberate our country. … We will help rebuild Iraq with our friends in America."


A nurse returns to speak to the Iraqi men about trying to get the body of the dead Iraqi man.


"They use civilians as human shields, and that's how this happens," Alsalahi says. "He was with his brothers and got shot. His brother is now wounded here at the hospital. The other brother died, and they want the body. I know with the Quran, there is a specific way they have to bury the body. They have to read some specific words from the Quran."


Alsalahi is more than a translator. He says he came to this hospital today on other matters that he declines to discuss, and he's just helping out.


"I cannot leave them without helping," Alsalahi says.


Alsalahi has a bachelor's degree in management from a university in Baghdad. He lives in San Diego with his wife and two children. "I'm a student in San Diego," he says.


He's been a member of the Free Officers and Civilian Movement, which was founded in 1996 by an ex-Iraqi military officer, for three years.


"Our goal is to topple Saddam," Alsalahi says. "It's going to happen. It makes me so happy, so happy I cannot describe it. But our feeling goes between happiness and sorrow that some people have accidentally died."



(Jeff Seidel writes for the Detroit Free Press. Send feedback to Seidel and Richard Johnson at portraitsofwar@freepress.com)



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Apr. 08, 2003

ROD RICHARDS - Morton, IL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Name: Rod Richards
Hometown: Morton,Ill.
Age: 34
Branch: Navy
Rank: Marine gunnery sergeant
Job: Platoon commander



---


CAMP VIPER, Iraq - Approaching a massive Iraqi bunker system that can hold up to 1,000 soldiers, Gunnery Sgt. Rod Richards expects to face a nasty firefight. Or maybe he will find hundreds of dead bodies, if the Air Force beat him to it.


A few weeks ago, he was told the bunker was occupied. When the unit was given its mission, it looked bleak, he says.


At best, Richards is hoping that hundreds of Iraqis will surrender to a couple of squads of Marines.


Richards, a platoon commander in charge of 46 Marines, is taking care of flank security for a convoy heading north through Iraq. Using satellite pictures, they mapped the bunker system in a sandbox and developed a plan of attack.


Richards is riding in a 7-ton truck with 15 Marines, loaded with several types of guns. He also is in charge of another 7-ton truck with another squad of Marines led by Sgt. Kenneth Ferguson. The two trucks will provide security for a team that will clear the bunker.


As they approach the bunker, nobody is around. Everything is destroyed. There is no sign of life. No sign of death, either. It looks abandoned, says Richards, 34, of Morton, Ill.


They stop, and Richards looks through binoculars at small fighting bunkers, which could probably hold about four soldiers, built into the sand.


Richards directs his truck crew to approach the bunkers with guns ready to fire, but again, nobody is around. The truck takes off, and somebody screams: "Yee haw!"


A few minutes later, Ferguson spots a tank turret on the horizon, probably 800 meters away, north of the convoy they're protecting. Richards sees the turrets through binoculars and calls command.


"There's a turret facing me, making me nervous," Ferguson says.


Richards' trucks are in the open, in the middle of the desert, well within range of a tank.


Richards decides to attack.




If everything goes really well, we will lose a fire team or so, Richards thinks. Only four Marines would die.


If things go badly, he thinks, almost nobody will survive. His mission is to clear the area. If he fails, more than 80 people in the convoy could die.


Richards will take the tank on the left. Ferguson will focus on the tank on the right.




Two squads of engineers are about to attack two main battle tanks. They are carrying four anti-tank rockets, hand grenades and C4 explosives rigged with 10-second fuses.


The trucks, part of the 6th Engineer Support Battalion, race across the desert toward the tanks, but the turrets don't move. Richards' truck parks about 250 meters away from the tank. Richards can see the turret, hidden behind a berm, protected with barbed wire. His squad fans out across the desert and sets up the machine guns.


Things are going well, Richards thinks.


Ferguson calls in more intelligence: A third tank has been spotted.


Richards is working the radio. He tries to give the grid coordinates for air support, but the radio is cluttered with chatter. Someone from 1st Platoon is trying to tell Explosive Ordnance Disposal the location of some unexploded ordnance. A support platoon driver asks another driver whether he had eaten noon chow.


Richards is furious.


"I'd smash their face in, with a smile, if I could reach them," he thinks. It's an uncommon burst of anger.


Richards is normally mild-mannered. A Marine Reserve, he is the father of two who works in information technology at Caterpillar Inc.


Four Marines run up to a tank with guns and explosives, knowing they will probably not survive. They will be mowed down by machine gun fire or they won't be able to find cover in time to get protection from the 10-second fuse on the block of explosive.


Right before setting off the explosives, they discover the tank is a clever decoy.


Richards is proud of his Marines.


"Not too bad for our first encounter with a tank," he says.