Earlier this month I had the opportunity to have a chat with an Army Sergeant who had returned to the States from a one year tour of duty in Iraq. It was my first opportunity to really sit down and talk face to face with someone from one of the combat zones, and I had a thousand questions for him. I did my best to just listen to what he had to say without comment, so often it wasn't so much a discussion as a debriefing. I did check with him several times as to whether or not he was comfortable talking about things, but he said it was fine, and actually somewhat therapeutic.

I'd like to share some of the things that he said. I agreed with some of it, and disagreed with some, but I'm going to do my best to present the information here, as he said it.

He's an E-5, a combat engineer, who's been in the service since before 9/11. His unit is based in Kansas, and while in Iraq was assigned to an area near Fallujah. His unit arrived there about a year ago, had a few days of overlap with the previous unit, and then the old unit completely left (rotated out). When his own unit was replaced, it was the same thing -- a new unit came in, overlapped for a brief time, and then he and his entire unit rotated out at the same time. I asked if it might have been better to leave a few people from the old unit for continuity, but he said, "No, not a good idea. Everyone arrives at once, everyone leaves at once. No one gets left behind. If someone was left behind, it would be bad for morale."

He got back to the States in late September, and is currently on 30 days leave from his base in Kansas, traveling around, seeing friends. After St. Louis, his plans were to head to Illinois to see his grandparents, but while in St. Louis he was here to hang out, drink beer, catch up with people he knows, and try to figure out how to fill his days, since he couldn't remember the last time he had this much time off!

During his year in Iraq, nine members of his unit were killed, and two were injured. He said he was shot at many times, and mortar or RPG attacks against his base were a routine occurrence. But he followed that by saying that the enemy was a lousy shot!

He said a common way they'd be attacked is that the insurgents would set up some sort of mortar or rocket attack, fire at the base, and then run away. The U.S. soldiers would then respond with an anti-personnel counter-battery. After that died down, the insurgents would return to regather their equipment. After this happened a few times and it became clear that the insurgents were getting the timing down, suggestions were made about changing the timing and so tactics were changed, so it was a constant evolution.

He said he went into town and walked the local streets many times, but that soldiers never walked alone. They always walked fully-armed, in groups of at least four. To go in smaller groups, he said, would probably have meant certain death from the insurge... [ Read More (0.8k in body) ]