Dispatches from Iraq

We're going to do something a little different today.

Matt is a sergeant in the Stryker Brigade, based in Ft. Lewis, WA. Matt is in the middle of a one-year tour of duty in Mosul, Iraq. Matt has a young daughter and is married.

Matt and I have been friends for six years. All you need to know about him as a person is that on my first Thanksgiving away from home, I was too sick to get off my couch, and he drove 25 miles through a pouring rain to bring me a plate of Thanksgiving dinner from his family's place.

Opinions on the war are deeply divided. We're not looking to make any political statements. We simply want to provide an unfiltered snapshot of life out on the frontlines. After all, if anyone has earned the right to exercise their First Amendment freedom, it is someone who has been willing to put his or her life on the line for their country.

Anyway, from here on in I'm just going to step out of the way and let Matt, 26, tell his story. He'll be filing every other weekend. The first installment is a journal entry from January.

I was sitting in the Stryker the other day, and as I looked down at my equipment my mind began to wander.

There I was, sitting in a vehicle with a 50 caliber machine gun and mounted smoke grenades, rolling through a war zone, wearing 30 pounds of equipment.

I was carrying an assault rifle, grenade launcher, shotgun, night vision goggles, and enough ammo to kill hundreds of people and take out a few vehicles or even a small building.

I was dodging small arms fire, mortar rounds, and rocket propelled grenades. On any given day there's a chance I'll get hit by a roadside or vehicle-borne mickey-moused explosive device, and I spend about eight to 14 hours a day in this situation on average. I consider this all "normal."

I wake up at a "normal" hour, sometimes as early as 0300, sometimes as late as 1100. I go on a "normal" mission or four, which could be a raid, a patrol, a 48-hour guard shift, or delivering school supplies to the children of Iraq. We get off at a "normal" time, and wait about an hour to find out how our next "normal" day is going to be.

I "normally" get a few hours of free time each day which I use to play my guitar, work out, and use the internet and phones. I try to keep in contact with my friends and family as often as I can, and just take each "normal" day mission by mission.

It's been three months, and it's flown by. Missions have been dropped in our lap without warning, and have been cancelled when we've been all loaded up and ready to roll. All of this is "normal." The only thing you can count on out here is that you can't count on anything.

On the other hand, I get to see and experience all sorts of new and different things out here, things that I'd never be exposed to elsewhere. I've seen explosions, dead bodies, and new levels of filth I hadn't known existed, but the really memorable experiences almost always have to do with kids.

I can be having the worst day imaginable, but these kids waving their little hands make me smile every time. We'll be driving slowly through the city streets, and these little rugrats will run out to greet us, waving until their arms must be ready to fall off. Their parents try to corral them back in to their gated yard, and the little rascals sneak around and continue waving (which proves that kids being mischievous is universal). Their big smiles and thumbs up are just as cute as an American's, and twice as heartwarming in this desolate place.

You can read more about the Styker Brigade at Stryker News.
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