Tales from the front

[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.




A few hours later, Richards rides on the same truck, providing flank security for the convoy. The truck is about 250 yards off the road, churning through soft sand. Richards notices a rusty brown metal disc half buried in the sand. The disc disappears under the truck. Richards looks up and sees hundreds of little discs spread across the ground.


Land mines!


"Stop!" Richards screams.


The truck stops, and Sgt. T.R. Sparenberg sighs.


Richards calls command: They have driven into a minefield.


Richards hops out, carefully. He digs around the disc with a plastic spoon, trying to find out whether it is connected to an explosive. He's pretty sure it's an anti-tank mine. They go off from pressure, he thinks.


He should be good to go, working under the disc.


He doesn't feel anything under the disc, and with one quick move, he flips it on its side.


Nothing happens.


It's a fake, and he smiles.


Another Marine finds another type of land mine, small ones called Toe Poppers, which blow off feet.


Even if one land mine is a fake, they don't know about the others.


They drive the truck backward, out of the minefield. But there is a trailer on back, and it starts to jackknife.


"Stop!" somebody screams in back. "Turn the wheels the other way!"


Richards walks across the ground, leading the truck out of the minefield, and they reach safety.


"Fake mines, fake tanks," Richards says. "Someday, somebody isn't going to cry wolf."


---



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


Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Apr. 07, 2003

RHETT PHILLIPS -- Pittsfield, IL
By Jeff Seidel
Knight Ridder Newspapers



Name: Rhett Phillips
Hometown: Pittsfield, Ill.
Age: 23
Branch: Marines
Rank: Sergeant
Job: Second in charge of 13 Marines




---


CAMP VIPER, Southern Iraq - About an hour before getting on a bus to start the long journey to Kuwait, Sgt. Rhett Phillips was pulled aside.


"Have you been to MCT (Marine combat training)?" someone asked.


"No," Phillips said.


Phillips, 23, of Pittsfield, Ill., had been in the Marines for nearly six years but never attended the course. Most Marines take it after boot camp, but Phillips is a reservist, so he went to training exercises instead. He had forgotten about it.


Phillips was ordered to stay behind at Camp Pendleton in California to take the course as the rest of Charlie Company left for Kuwait. He rejoined his unit in Kuwait four days before the war started.


"I kind of had to hit the ground running, but I adapt well," he said.


And sometimes, he hits the ground running with explosives. On one memorable day, he charged an enemy tank position with two sticks of explosives in his hand. He's not sure who gave them to him.


"I had the C-4, and I didn't really know what I was going to do with it," he says. "I was going to set it on the tank."


In the end, the tank was a decoy; he didn't have to set off the explosives.


A few days later, Phillips got into trouble for being so close to the tank. He should have delegated the job.


"I shouldn't have been up there carrying it, apparently, is what I was told," Phillips says. "It was just a butt-chewing. It's not a big deal. Butt-chewings are a dime a dozen in the Marine Corps."


Almost nothing bothers him. Phillips is a rarity: a laid-back Marine.


"People tend to lose their head, but I told myself I wouldn't do that, never," Phillips says. "I never do."


---


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



Sempers,

Roger