One soldier’s story

“I am not in Kansas anymore.” Army medic Patrick Campbell (right) and a comrade. (Photos courtesy Patrick Campbell)

For the past year and a half, Patrick Campbell has been sending home dispatches chronicling his journey through basic training as a reservist with the Army National Guard, his first year of law school, his job as an aide on Capitol Hill, the momentous decision to set aside academia to volunteer for active duty, and most recently, his first taste of Combat in Iraq. The Camarillo native is now serving as a medic in Baghdad. Here is the story of how he got there.

Patrick Campbell was on top of the world —or at least on top of Washington, D.C.

The grass on his side of the street couldn’t have been greener last spring, when he survived his first round of law school finals. Then he made the choice that would send him thousands of miles from the safety of things like books and friends and bars.

“I thought, ‘I am so safe where I am right now,’” Campbell says. “Granted, law school’s hard, but I had everything. I just kept thinking, ‘Why do I get to be in law school while everyone else is over there?’”

It was the Washington Post’s weekly update of troops fallen in Iraq that kept catching his eye. Though Campbell was busy hitting the books and serving as student body president at the Catholic University of America, his successes were beginning to feel pointless.

“I tried to imagine each of the soldiers as individuals, not just numbers,” says 27-year-old Campbell, a graduate of Adolfo Camarillo High School. “Everything that was going well for me was feeling hollow.”

The idea was a seed that sprouted sometime during Campbell’s first semester of law school, and by March, he was searching for an Army National Guard unit that needed an active-duty medic. Campbell had finished boot camp and medic’s training as a reservist the day before he started law school.

“There are people who have it a lot worse—wives, kids, sick family members,” he says. Campbell had hoped he could serve as a replacement for some other medic with pressing matters on the home front.

“In my thought process, I was hopefully going to make it so someone could stay,” he says. “I couldn’t keep them from going, but I figured I could bring them home.”

Campbell, who was in D.C. when terrorists attacked the East Coast on Sept. 11, 2001, was one of many tested for infection after an anthrax scare on Capitol Hill.

“I was in the right place at the wrong time,” he says. “I always seem to find myself in situations like that—and I like sharing that with people.”

But he isn’t exactly Forrest Gump.                                                                  

The political science major from the University of California, Berkeley, began keeping an on-line journal, to detail his experiences and keep his friends informed about the bumps and bright spots of his daily life.

“I like telling people about the things I would want to know.”

Last summer, Campbell joined the “Tiger Brigade,” or the 256th Combat Brigade Team of Louisiana—a 4,000-strong group in need of a medic on the battlegrounds of Iraq.

At the time, he was holding down a job for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)

“After two hours of letting them know I worked for Sen. Leahy, I had a brigade,” he said.

Campbell could be the only fledgling politician to pull strings to get into the Army.

Although now he’s planning to practice public service, not politics.

“The more I am involved in politics, the more I don’t want to be involved in them the way they are,” says Campbell, who worked on the campaigns of Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Cal.) and others. “The only thing I want to do is help people.”

Campbell was shipped to Iraq in late October, and returned to American soil Christmas Day. He returns to Iraq this month, and will remain in-country for the next nine months.

“I’m not too scared, but it’s hard to come here and see what life is like, and then go back,” he says. “I wish I could go home, but I wish everyone could go home.”

Campbell now has a girlfriend to return home to.

“It was a strange quirk of fate,” he says. “After I made the decision to go, someone came into my life.”

At first, Campbell said, his fellow troops didn’t know what to make of the guy who was just plain wacko enough to volunteer for real live war.

“At first, they thought I was crazy – but then they had a lot of respect for me,” he says.

Still, they have their differences.

“When I get into a tank, they say, ‘Are you still a Democrat?’ and I say, ‘Yes, sir!’”

—Stacey Wiebe

February-April 2003: Campbell began writing home during basic training for the Army National Guard.

So I’ve made it to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, home of field artillery. I have been stuck with needles, stood at attention with a 70 lb. pack for an hour, been “smoked” (a term for drill sergeants reminding us how dumb we are in public), and shaved my head. The last one is still hard to accept, because Campbells lose hair so fast anyway—to accelerate the process is a real shame.

I am on fire watch right now, which means I have to stay up and check on the guys to see if they are staying in their bed and check on them if they are crying. No one has cried yet, not even me, but many people have puked and we haven’t even started physical training yet.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Set, forward, march, step, drop! On the ground soldiers! Down you little pieces of shit! Up, down (x25), now hold it! I was dying and collapsing.

I have some new friends: PVT Klein, who is going to be a medic, like me; PVT Hernandez, a 36-year-old from South L.A. with a 7-year-old daughter; PVT Rico (I accidentally called him Cisco for the first three days; and PVT Weatherbie, a 34-year-old armored car driver from Rancho Cucamonga. We look out for each other.

I am going to sign off for the night because, if the drill sergeant catches me writing, I will get smoked and maybe my whole platoon, which is bad, very, very bad. Oh shit, that was close, and who just walked in? Drill sergeant. I am writing by the light from the hallway. If I had been using a flashlight—well, let’s say I wouldn’t want to find out.

I did more push-ups yesterday than I have ever done in my entire life. I was up at 0230 (2:30 a.m.) to pull my fire guard shift and spent the rest of the day dropping at the drill sergeant call, “FRONT! LEANING! REST POSITION!” (i.e., push-ups). We did push-ups in our barracks because someone didn’t call “AT EASE” when a drill sergeant walked in the room. We did push-ups on the cement for a fitness diagnostic. We did push-ups outside the dining commons because someone talked during lunch or didn’t put their hat on when they got outside. We did push-ups on “Hell Hill,” a grassy knoll with a steep incline (facing downhill), and push-ups everywhere else for being stupid. We even did “Hurry up, waiting on you” push-ups when we didn’t get back in formation in time.

Yesterday, we got our first taste of our M-16A2 rifle. It was weird holding a rifle. I have shot before (mostly in Boy Scouts), but something that is designed to kill at 300 meters and fire three-round bursts is something entirely different. We disassembled and reassembled our “new best friend.” I felt like the older brother in Mars Attacks, trying to reassemble my gun (oops, never call it a gun. NEVER. It is one of the fastest ways to get underneath their skin) My rifle. My second time through, I took it apart and reassembled it in three minutes, and I think we will ultimately have to do it in two minutes. No problem!

Leave it to the Army to remind me that I can’t even take breathing for granted.

Today, we did the infamous “gas chamber” training. We trained all day about different chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and learned how to properly put on our masks, training we quickly put to use when we walked into a chamber full of CX, or tear gas.

The whole building was 40 feet by 15 feet with four windows with metal grates on the inside (to keep privates from jumping through the windows to escape). There are two rooms: The cold room and the hot room. My entire platoon filed into the cold room where there was minimal gas, and you could start to feel the burning on your skin. Everyone was scared and nervously bouncing around.

With our masks on, we walked into the hot room.

The hot room was filled with smoke, had a CS burner in the middle, four drill sergeants, and a layer of snot, puke, spit, and other bile on the floor. Eight at a time, we had to take off our masks and say our names, social security numbers and our platoon name.

I never finished my last name before I felt like I was going to die. I couldn’t feel my skin burn anymore, but my lungs started to fill with acid, my eyes burned uncontrollably, and I had to keep on yelling, otherwise we would have to stay in there longer.

I have no shame.

I had snot and spit and bile pouring out, and I wanted to die.

Every second multiplied how bad it hurt. We could not have been in there for more than 30 seconds, but time stood still. I barely held on to my mask and my breakfast, if you catch my drift. For those unlucky souls who dropped their masks inside the chamber, well, they had to go back in and get them …

The third week has flown by at super speed. I did, however, score the only “knockdown/knockout” during a fight with pugil sticks during bayonet training. I was a little vicious and surprised some people, especially myself.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! So, I spent this special day as any good, single, Irish Catholic 25-year-old in the civilian world would have: Wearing green and spending most of the night praying over the porcelain god, making libations. I outlasted 99 percent of the other privates, but it caught up to me pretty bad. As the drill sergeants would say, “Drink water and drive on!”

We got to watch the President’s address about Iraq tonight. You can sense that the looming (or, by the time you get this, ensuing) war has made people take training sooo much more seriously.

Rumors have been flying around about how, during war situations, they can shorten BASIC training and cancel our Advanced Skill trainings (i.e., medic training in my case) and send us directly overseas as front-line infantry. Scary, but true. “Drink water, drive on,” right?

For lunch, we got our lesson in Micro-Economics. We all get our MRE (Meal Ready to Eat). They come in brown bags and have astronaut-type food. I hear there are 40 or so different packs and as soon as they are opened the bargaining begins. Peanut butter for jalapeno cheese, cheese tortellini for meatloaf, coffee for iced tea mix, but the real intense trading happens with the desserts. I have seen a pack of skittles go for $10 and a pack of M&Ms for a five-guard shift. I stick with the pound cakes (pineapple, lemon and chocolate brownie. YUMM). My favorite part of the MRE is the moist towelette, but that is just me! …

If you have been living under a rock for the past week, we are at war. Having our country at war while being in BASIC training is a truly surreal experience. I have heard that most of the American public is watching this war nearly live from Iraq, and that everyone is seeing war as it unfolds with its bravery, folly and mortality.

But here I am now training for war, and everyone here is hungering for the slightest morsel of news about Iraq from our drill sergeants. Yesterday, I watched CNN from the reflection of a window in the Drill Sergeant’s office while he was studying the back of his eyelids. Now when I see or read a human interest story about Sgt. So-and-So and PFC What’shisbucket, I automatically feel a kinship with that person …

Training has changed because of the war, and so has the attitude of the privates. Now, when we discuss how to react to chemical hazards, we see pictures on the front page the very next day of soldiers wearing their protective masks, or stories about soldiers not getting any sleep, or eating only two MREs every 48 hours. The whole experience makes BASIC training sound like just a bad day on easy street.

The past two weeks, we have been training on BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship). We would work out in the mornings, march three to four miles to the range, and then fire our M-16s all day long. I thought I was going to be a shooting hotshot; I was soon humbled. Wednesday was the big day to qualify, and I was very nervous. I just needed 23 hits, and I took my magazine and locked and loaded my weapon. Somehow I broke out of my slump and nailed 34 out of 40 targets. I qualified as a “sharpshooter.” I was so relieved, and I proudly stuck my chest out when I had my “sharpshooter” medal pinned on my uniform. I found out yesterday that I qualified as an “expert” with the bayonet. I am a killing machine.

I am also a running machine. After six weeks of training, I finally passed all three parts of my physical fitness test. I pumped out 38 push-ups, 56 sit-ups, and ran a 14:06 two-mile. So, I finally rewarded myself with some soft-serve chocolate ice cream at dinner. I almost went into sugar shock because I hadn’t had any sugar in a month and a half. Needless to say, I have lost a little weight …

We actually were caught on the news loading and unloading the bus and, although I couldn’t hear the sound, I saw some scenes of us and our drill sergeants yelling at us. Then the scene cut to a sign on a hospital room with the word “casualty” on it. Like I said, a surreal experience …

Yesterday, we had a class about the Army value, “honor,” and, at the end of the class, the drill sergeant asked each platoon to name someone who exemplified honor. At first, our platoon was silent, but then PVT. Koth stood up and started talking about “Camp Counselor” and how much he means to the platoon. He went on and on and, when he was done, another private stood up and kept talking and reinforcing how much this “Camp Counselor” puts into the platoon and means to everyone there.

Why do they call me “Camp Counselor?” They also call me “Chewbacca,” but I won’t explain that …

Things have changed since I started this letter… our PG (or platoon guide) started having irregular heartbeats and I rushed with him to the hospital. So guess what? I am the new PG. I have to be in charge of this unruly group. The most obnoxious thing about being PG is that I will have to eat last every day. I will do whatever it takes to get this platoon to succeed as a platoon.

On Monday, we practiced buddy rushes, approaching on an enemy target in pairs. One lays down cover fire, while the other jumps up and runs for three to five seconds. We were running with live ammo, and if any buddy has his weapon the wrong way (i.e., towards me), it can be dangerous. Obviously, I survived, even though my buddy was voted most likely to accidentally shoot his buddy.

Later that night, we did burst fire with our M-16s and night fire. For night fire, we waited till dark and got to fire tracer rounds. Tracers are orange flares that allow you to see where you are firing at night. When 12 privates are firing 40 rounds all at the same time, it looks like the Fourth of July. Because it is hard to see your targets and because privates are pretty bad shots, a lot of the tracers went over the ridgeline and some would ricochet off the ground and fly straight up in the air. It was weird to be able to follow with your eyes the bullets, especially when the tracers look like flying orange glow sticks.

They say, “Close is only good in horseshoes and hand grenades.” Well, I know a lot more about hand grenades now. I was scared out of my mind when they handed me that live grenade. I ran to the pit and got ready to throw. I was shaking with adrenaline, and the explosion rippled through my body. It was the nervousness that I imagine I would feel right before going into battle. You throw a grenade like a baseball and not using a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hook shot like you might see John Wayne do in an old WWII movie.

Graduation was downright stressful. I was still in denial when my parents stole me away for the day. It was almost surreal to be eating with my parents, playing dominoes and even taking a nap on a couch. One of the brightest moments of my “civilian life” was watching my Battle Buddy, PVT Blankenship, marry his HS sweetheart …

May 2003: After completing basic training, Campbell was transferred for additional medical training to Fort Sam Houston, otherwise known as “Fort Club Med.”

I have been a soldier-medic down here at Fort Sam Houston for the last two and a half weeks. I cannot begin to describe to you how much more I enjoy being here and learning what I am learning. No more cadences like the old Fort Sill favorite, “Trained to Kill, Kill we Will.”

Before I sink into deep slumber, I wanted to tell what I saw this morning. We were on our morning run, and I saw a man carrying a life-sized cross down the street. I immediately had Berkeley flashbacks and inquired about it. As it turns out, the chaplain, every morning for physical training, carries a cross for a couple miles. I would love to say “Only in Texas,” but I know better.

As of last week, I passed the national registry exam to become a certified (civilian) EMT Basic, someone who is capable of performing basic life support or driving an ambulance. Out of my company of 400 soldiers, I received the fourth highest test score and tutored a lot of my battle buddies who squeaked by with their 70 percents …

Now that we got all that civilian training out of the way, we need to learn it the Army way. This is where we learn how to administer IVs, shots, venipunctures (taking blood) and saline locks. If you don’t know what any or all of those are, just imagine a lot of needles. The worst is that we have to practice on each other. We all know that none of us knows what we are doing, so the fear level was (as Tom Ridge would say) “elevated.” All in all, I got stuck over 17 times in one week …

It is sad now that I stare at people in line and figure out which vein I would stick them with an IV, should they happen to pass out right then …

On August 25, 2003 Campbell, having completed his training as a reservist, enrolled at Catholic University as a first year law student.

I know it has been a little while since I last wrote, but law school finals, although completely life-consuming, are rather boring to write about

After a week of post finals stupor, I had to brush off my boots and press my uniforms and board a plane. Soldiers in the Army National Guard commit to serve one weekend per month and two weeks per year. Wouldn’t you know it, this year the DC National Guard Medical Command was being sent to San Diego. Our mission was to provide medical support for a battalion of Army Corps of Engineers from Kentucky. They would spend their two weeks constructing a fence along the California-Mexico border.

I did have the opportunity to treat one upset stomach (a little too much drinking the night before) with milk of magnesia; a couple headaches; two cuts on feet from playing on the beach; and the highlight of my medical experience was removing six stitches from the finger of the soldier voted by his unit most likely to get hurt.

Although I spent 99 percent of my time watching the engineers sit around and wait for work, by the end I had developed a good rapport with the soldiers, and they paid me the highest honor a medic can receive: they called me “Doc”!

Today, I started my first day in Senator Leahy’s office as a law clerk for the Senate Judiciary Committee. If the first day is an indication of how the rest of the summer is going to be, then I really did land a dream job. I have already been given a substantive issue to research and one judicial nomination to work on. I have met the senator twice, was included in a staff meeting —and pitched four scoreless innings to lead my new softball team to victory. But that is for another day …

As some of you know, I will not be attending law school in the fall because I have volunteered to serve an active duty tour in Iraq. I will be leaving in just under 40 days, and will not return for a little more then a year…

Duty. At the risk of sounding cliché, I believe strongly that it is my duty as a combat medic of the Army National Guard to serve my country in times of crisis. Every time I read an article or see film footage showing some of my fellow soldiers getting injured, I am overwhelmed by a need to be doing my part. I check the Washington Post’s “Faces of the Fallen” weekly, and, each time, I remember that it is the role of the combat medic to bring each of those soldiers home alive.

I do not believe we went in for the right reasons. I do not believe that the United States should loosely use unilateral military action in preemptive strikes. However, I do believe that once we invaded, we were burdened with a moral obligation to finish the job we started.

I go with one purpose: to bring our soldiers home safely. I just want to bring home safely one more soldier than would have come home if I hadn’t been there.

I have never been in a better position in life to take this type of opportunity. I have no wife, no kids and not even a girlfriend. Law school will always be there for me. There is no shortage of lawyers in this world. I only own IKEA furniture, the same set of furniture I bought the last six times I moved …

In civilian terms, I will be a medic for a bunch infantry soldiers who walk everywhere. A line medic travels with the infantry unit wherever they go, and I will be expected to fight alongside with the infantry soldiers. I must be honest that being a light infantryman for the Army essentially puts me on the front lines, if there are still “front lines” left in Iraq.

August 2003: Campbell shipped out to Texas in preparation for being sent to Kuwait.

Tonight is the final send-off after a grueling cross-country tour that featured bands, libations, embarrassing stories and some meaningful personal resolutions (not just the post-drinking, “I will never drink again”-type resolutions).

“Welcome to the ’hood,” proclaimed my future roommate, Steve, as we drove from the airport to my new home, Fort Hood. I was finally beginning my journey to Iraq …

When I arrived in Dallas, I saw military crawling throughout the airport, and I became acutely aware that I was no longer the hometown boy going off to war. I was no longer anything special and I was now joining the ranks of a mass movement of soldiers all over the world. No one would care what I left or who I was in my previous life. Most of the briefings concerned two things, the smallpox and anthrax vaccines that we would be receiving. What came next best resembled school registration at Camarillo High School. There were tables everywhere, and people had to move station to station depending on their situation. There was obviously method to the chaos that ensued, but it was lost on all of us laymen. I had to get blood drawn by a brand new medic whose hands were shaking something wicked, and received three vaccines: typhoid, smallpox and anthrax. Throughout every station there were signs saying, “No Whining” (especially at the seven or so vaccine stations), except, most notably, the anthrax station. There it said, “Whining Permitted.”

Day three: We arrived at the crack of dawn to the M-16 range. Another unit from Texas was doing its night fire when a bullet ricocheted off something on the range and did a complete 180 and hit some private in the bleachers behind the range. It was a scary and sobering reminder that this stuff is not safe even when we are training.

Day nine: Checkpoints. One of the duties we will have while we are in country (or in Iraq) is to run checkpoints. The first COB (civilian on the battlefield) I searched was not wearing any underwear beneath his robe, and, needless to say, I got a lot closer to this COB when I checked him. The second COB I searched had been pacing and ignoring orders to turn around. While checking him, I found a pistol on him and I had to knock him down to the ground while my buddies put to the ground the rest of his buddies. Unfortunately, I put him down in a small prickly bush. He definitely earned his paycheck that night.

So I am done with training in record time. Four months of training in 11 days. We leave for Louisiana later this week, and there we will catch up with our real units.

The eve of my flight to Kuwait. I am in a platoon of 30 medics who provide support to the rest of the battalion. To be honest, I didn’t like them much when I first met them. No one said hello or welcomed me to the unit. I hid from the unit the rest of the day and pouted. Eventually, my first lieutenant found me and said the commanding officer wanted to talk with the fillers. He graciously welcomed us and thanked us for joining his unit. I felt ten times better and moved my stuff into my new tent with my new unit.

One more side note: I let my battle buddy borrow my cell phone on Monday, and he didn’t return it for almost five hours. I started having mini-panic attacks and started behaving unlike myself. I know that when I get to Kuwait I am going to be fiending for it.

So now I am just hours away from leaving, and I am feeling both excited and scared. To be perfectly honest, I am not as scared about being hurt or killed, but more about losing touch with those I love so much.

September 2003: Campbell arrived in the Middle East.

Our last leg took us to Kuwait City. I was awake for most of the flight. I began to get excited, but it kept striking me that I would soon be in the Middle East, carrying an M-16 rifle and wearing an Army DCU. I was not going to be a tourist or special visitor. I was there to enforce U.S. foreign policy, dictated by my commander in chief. All I could see when I deplaned was a giant neon sign in Arabic and in English saying “Kuwait Aviation Services.” Now I was really in the Middle East.

We drove in the buses for a couple of hours. Our bus driver must have been really sleepy or a terrible driver, as he weaved back and forth on the highway. Someone joked that they did not come to the Middle East to die in a bus crash. After driving along dirt roads for about an hour we finally arrived at Camp Buehring. We were surrounded by sand and more sand. There are no distinct geographic formations on the horizon. The sun beat down on us, and the sand was soft. I know it sounds cliché, but this place was just hot and sandy.

I found the MWR center with a weight room, little movie theater, TV room, gaming tables and even a dance club on Friday and Saturday nights. The good thing about the dance club is you will always have a date (your M-16).

After dinner, I figured I would try out the AT&T call center, which consisted of two trailers of phone banks. Service died four times in the 30 minutes I was in the call center.

My first day in Kuwait was downright exhausting, but I can work with this place.

I am happy to report that I am doing well here in Udairi Kuwait, at Camp Buehring. The only terrain features are the wind-swept dunes, but around here all the dunes are man-made to act as barriers. The sky is either clear and light blue or, when the wind picks up or an M-1 tank rolls by, then the sky is a brown fog. At night, you can only see the brightest stars or planets (which was a big disappointment). The horizon extends as far as the eye can see in all directions, and it is easy to forget that we are anywhere near civilization. What never fails to steal my breath are the sunsets and sunrises. The colors are so vivid and just like being back at home and watching from on the beach, you can see the sun slip away into the horizon. I think everyone here has tons of sunset pictures.

The wildlife consists of thousands of homo sapiens dressed in brown camouflage uniforms. Each is carrying at least one of a wide variety of weapon systems…

Outside of the wire, I have seen herds of camels, wild and domesticated. I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention the flies. If the lion is the king of the jungle, the fly is the king of the desert.

I have been taught classes on how to respond to IEDs (improvised explosive devices), which just reinforced my belief that when it is my time to go it will just be my time.

I trained with my new unit, the Alpha Company “Killas.” At first, they were a little wary of the new guy, but when they assigned me to carry the battering ram and I successfully busted down a couple of doors, I was able to earn their respect. Alpha company is most disciplined and has the highest marksmanship rating of the entire brigade. They are the most hardcore and they know it. I have mixed feelings about being with the most hardcore group in the brigade. They are going to get assigned the toughest missions and probably will receive the most contact with the enemy. But at the same time, they are the best, and in a fire fight and you want to know that your buddy watching your back is the best. I just pray that I am ready for the task of saving these young soldiers’ lives …

So I safely made it to Baghdad, though I am not sure how safe I am now that I am in Baghdad, ;- ) ! It was a four-day journey from Kuwait that had all the fixings of a great road trip: new places with good friends and an ice chest full of cold refreshments. I mean, what more could you want?

Convoys are the lifeblood of the effort here in Iraq. They deliver (a mortar just landed … BOOM! ) supplies, food, ammo, mail, and even new troops to all over Iraq. Our particular convoy’s mission was to deliver my entire battalion, their vehicles and equipment to our new home in Baghdad.

For this particular mission, we were traveling in a brand-spanking-new, fully armored Humvee, complete with A/C. I was fortunate because not everyone’s vehicle was as solid as ours. Some were “up-armored,” which is where armored parts such as doors are added to an older vehicle. Others without any armor were left to fend for themselves, which led to “Hillbilly Armoring.” These vehicles have metal plates welded wherever they could get them attached and sand bags fill every open space. These vehicles belong in a Mad Max movie …

Other than adjusting to being in “Full Battle Rattle” in a tight, confined space, the trip for our serial was rather uneventful. When we arrived at our destination, we learned that the convoy that had left a day before us had received some small arms fire.

As we crossed the border, we were treated to an ominous omen. Far in the distance to the east were fires that would make the Big Game bonfire look small. Far off in the west was a lunar eclipse. I don’t have any idea what that means, but, like most die-hard CAL fans, I am extremely superstitious, so I believe it must mean something. The first Iraqis I saw on the side of the road were little kids who gave us a thumbs up, which made me feel good about where we were going …

Our third leg took us through the desert and into the semi-arid portions of Iraq. We went from sand to rock and dirt, to palm trees and corn fields. All throughout the journey I was struck by the random Iraqis just sitting on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, with no vehicles in sight. The little kids usually did not wear any shoes and many of the adult males wore the red headdressings you see in the movies. At one point I saw three kids; the first gave me a wave “hello,” the second gave me a “thumbs up,” while the third gave me “thumbs down.” Their sentiment about our presence here sounded about right.

The last leg of journey was the most dangerous part of our trip. Before we got out the gate, we heard word that someone had spotted an IED along the route we were going to take. I can’t believe someone actually noticed it, and whoever it was probably saved some lives.

During the drive up, everyone was tense. Our gunner harshly told me, “No pictures or eating, Campbell, just watch your lane.” I didn’t take any pictures, but I did eat after the commander ate. I had my eyes peeled constantly, searching for any sign of a potential threat. Although I was scanning for IEDs, RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) and ambushes. I sometimes caught myself admiring the beautiful landscape and the number of palm trees in their natural habitat (palm trees are not native to So Cal!). There were fields of corn, herds of sheep and school children going to school. Iraq is a beautiful country (my mom was right; I will love to come back here under different circumstances). We arrived at our new home, Camp Blackjack, named after the 1st Calvary Division, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. They owned this camp, and now we are taking over for them … It has a salad bar, taco bar, stir fry bar, sandwich shop, omelets, ice cream, pastries, cereal, a grill and pizza bar (YUM … pizza!). Just tonight they had a live band perform for dinner. It is the only DFAC (dining facility) I would ever consider taking a date to.

They don’t have us working yet, but the mortar blasts and intermittent gun fire in the distance serve as a stark reminder that we are in the middle of a war zone. The mortars seem to fall in groups of three or four, and they feel and sound like claps of lightning. They almost steal your breath if they are close enough. My medical NCO and I were talking about the “what ifs” of these mortar attacks, and right as we got down, we heard two very loud breathtaking explosions followed by intense small arms fire that lasted for about...