A YOUNG SOLDIER'S REMEMBRANCE OF DEPLOYMENT TO IRAQ

A YOUNG GEORGIA MAN AT WAR

EDITOR'S NOTE: Below are the thoughts of a U.S. Army National Guardsman from the South, written near the end of his first deployment in Iraq several years ago. The young man, who was deployed for second tour of duty in that country, requests anonymity, and he gets that honor and respect here. Fortunately, he returned with relatively minor injuries, and the rest of the journal he kept while in Iraq will be published here soon. I run part of it now, years later, because as part of the Veterans Day weekend, I think not only of those killed in action, but those who served and returned alive, but with wounds suffered in battle and memories most of us are fortunate enough not to have. Although most of these soldiers, including this young man, would deny it, in my strong opinion, like those who have fought in previous wars, they are heroes. -- Toney Atkins,

 

     I sit and think, pondering this deployment in Iraq.

    I am a 21-year-old National Guard soldier on my first deployment. I have seen and been around things I think no man should ever see. It is, however, part of war that man has to live with.
 

    I write this story with a heavy and a broken heart. I want to tell you about a bad day for me and how people at home should praise and be thankful for the lives they have.
 

    I will first tell you about my bad day and then I will touch on a few more thoughts about the military.
 

    My bad day starts with me being sick. I’ve had a cold and a fever for the last three days, making sleep very difficult. I average four to five hours a night and sometimes less. We drive constantly, and we’ve had many maintenance issues along this trip.
 

    I have been in contact with my girlfriend of two years almost daily for the past week. She tells me now that this is to hard for her and that she doesn’t know if she can make it. This is constantly on my mind and not being at home where you can talk and work things out makes it even worse. You can’t hear her voice and you never have enough time.
 

    But I'm on a mission in Iraq, and home is far away. It's time to go, and we drive all night.

    We reach a point were both the north and south lanes have to come together and meet to go through a checkpoint. We are the southbound convoy, and we have to stop because a northbound convoy beat us there. We sit still in the middle of Baghdad while they go through. Then, "boom."
 

    About 150 meters up in the other lane, I see a flash. Then you feel the feeling that I will never forget. If you have never been close to an explosion, you don’t know what it is. The best way to describe it is that you feel like your chest is caving in. We all know, of course, this is a shock wave from an explosion. An IED goes through the truck in the other lane.
 

    As I watch helplessly, I see a military 18-wheeler go up in flames. In less than seven -- yes, seven -- seconds the entire truck is egulfed. I see the driver exit the vehicle as he runs for help. I never see the passenger get out. I tell my driver we are watching a man die and we have no control over it.

 

     Your first instinct is to run and help the man, but then the small arms fire comes. From both sides of the road you see tracer rounds flying over your head. In the mist of being shot at, all I can think about is the man in the truck. You tell yourself that he will be okay, but you know that he is not. As the convoy finally starts moving, you go by the truck and it is amazing the amount of damage done in less than one minute. The truck is nothing but ruins and nothing was spared.

    To be so young and to see a loss of life like this just overwhelms me.
    The damage of war can never be measured. We can put a cost on war but we can never put a cost on the mental health of our soldiers. I did and I will see this image of that truck for many nights to come. When I close my eyes to sleep, I see flames and I can only pray that this man knew his Savior.

    I tell you this story not for sorrow -- at least, not for me. Feel sorry for the loved ones of that man and feel sorrow for the people close to him in this forsaken war.

    I think my real reason for writing this story is to just let people know how soldiers feel. We see things civilians will never see. We long just to be home where mortars don’t fly in and where gunshots are just the neighbor killing a deer. I think of good times with my girlfriend, who may leave me soon. I think of good friends and memories of football or of us just hanging out. We as soldiers see and appreciate these things more than people ever will know.

    I want to talk now about what we lose and what we gain. Being deployed has shown me a lot. There have been things I thought I would never do that I have done. Being a soldier in this war has made me grow as a human and it has made me see different points of view. I see now who my real friends are. The ones that write and send care packages. I see the ones who aren’t real friends that I haven’t heard from in eight months now. I have gained true friends who have seen what I have seen and done what I have done and I am thankful for that. I have felt love for a woman that I have never felt before and I have leaned on that more than I ever have. I may lose that now and I know this will be hard.

    I can tell you that family and significant others, whether they are wives, husbands, girl or boy friends, mean a lot. My girlfriend is what keeps me going and is what I miss the most. I would do anything for her and do anything to see her.
 

    I don’t believe she or other people understand how much we depend on them. They say it is hard for them. Well yes you are missing a loved one. We are missing all of our loved ones. We don’t have our best friends to turn to. We don’t have out parents to confide in. People don’t understand the longing that we have to be home.

    I want to end this by saying I feel like this deployment has been a great experience. Though I may write about the bad things that have happened to me, I say I have learned just as much. If my relationship can’t make it through this, then maybe it isn’t meant to be. If my friends don’t write, then what kind of true friends are they?
 

    I am proud to serve my country and would do it again if need be. I ask that you write a letter to a soldier because it mean more than you will ever know. I ask that you bear that burden of missing someone if you have a soldier gone, because they are the ones really feeling lonely. And I ask that you pray for your soldiers that they may come soon and be with their loved ones. Notice that I say YOUR soldiers because every American is who we are fighting for.
 

    And if you are having a bad day, I pray that you think about the men and women who put it all on the line through sickness and through heartache and put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself if your day is so bad. As I reflect on this past day about which I write you, I know mine could have been worse. I could have been in that truck and I could be sicker and I could not have ever known the love that I may soon lose.
 

    I say once again: don’t sympathize for me because I bear this burden. It is my job and my duty. I know my day could have been worse.
 

    I simply ask that every American citizen remember there is still a war going on, and we are still losing good young men. Remember them daily.
 

    Thank you for reading this. Understand that no soldier wants sympathy. We all took an oath and we knew what we were getting into, but all soldiers present, past and future just want and deserved to be remembered back home by those whose bad days might not be as bad as they could be.

 

    P.S. Oh, yeah. The girl I loved left me without thinking twice before I was to come home from this first deployment. She apparently didn't have the love and patience -- or guts -- to understand where I was and what I was doing and simply didn't want to wait. Life goes on. On the bright side, I've already put the word out, and I'm looking again.

 

P.S.S. An update: The writer indeed "looked again," and he presently is married and a father. His journal of other experiences in Iraq will be published here soon. They may help future young people who, God forbid, have to prepare themselves to go into battle in a foreign land. The Iraq war ended since this was originally published, but we must continue to remember our valiant warriors in Afghanistan, where battles continue.