"So, are you a virgin?"

[Dan_ref]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/19/in...rtner=homepage

August 19, 2005
At War in Bomb Field, at Peace in Field of Dreams
By JULIET MACUR

CAMP WARHORSE, Iraq, Aug. 17 - After a seven-hour mission inside an armored Humvee so hot its metal would burn exposed skin, Staff Sgt. Dawayne Harterson crawled out the passenger door, exhausted, and walked directly to his tent.

He quickly exchanged his uniform for an Army-issued gray T-shirt and black shorts.

A few minutes later, he was standing on a grassless expanse, ready for the next task of his yearlong deployment in Iraq: softball season.

"C'mon, dawg! Where is everybody?" he said to his coach, Sgt. Ronnie Mays, when they realized the team was a player short. "Man, I'm gonna lose my mind if we don't play today."

Their Army Reserve unit, Company A of the 467th Engineer Battalion based in Memphis, has one of the most harrowing jobs on this base. As many as two or three times a day, often on only a few hours' sleep, the engineers of the 467th leave the relative safety of Warhorse's walls and travel down highways at 20 miles an hour in search of the No. 1 killer of American soldiers in Iraq: roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s.

[Six more American soldiers were killed Thursday by roadside bombs, four by a blast in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra and two others in Afghanistan, the military said. Pages A4 and A9.]

"One minute we're trying to catch a fly ball; the next minute, we're praying not to get blown into a million pieces," said Sergeant Harterson, 35, from Jacksonville, N.C., as Black Hawk medevac helicopters flew over Warhorse and Bradley fighting vehicles kicked up dust in the distance. "That's how messed up our life has been. But man, we still need sports, because we need to have that escape."

So a sergeant in the 467th lifts weights to help fight nervousness after a car bomb exploded and burned him. Two young brothers compete in basketball and volleyball and in the eight-team softball league to release tension. Two best friends play marathon games of Monopoly to combat boredom and fear.

"We need to trick our minds that we're somewhere else," Sergeant Harterson said. "Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to go on, knowing today might be our last."

The 122 soldiers in the 467th, from places like Tennessee, Mississippi and Puerto Rico, came together this year in Baquba, a city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. They range in age from 19 to 58, and at home, they have jobs like FedEx package handler, prison guard, Kellogg's waffle inspector and horseshoer. About one-third came from the inactive ready reserve, soldiers who do not have to train but can be called to active duty at a moment's notice.

"The only reason we got this nasty job chasing roadside bombs is because we are expendable," said Staff Sgt. Jeff Rayner from Nashville. "They need bodies, and we provide them. We clear the roads, but we're still treated like dirt here."

Soon after they arrived, the soldiers were moved from containerized housing units, aluminum shipping containers that hold two or three soldiers, to tents, the most primitive housing on the base.

They bonded on convoys down the treacherous roads and turned to sports to boost sagging morale.

On one afternoon last week, when the air finally cooled to a tolerable 100 degrees, the engineers emerged from their curved-top tents, which sleep 12, and hung out under a patio covered by camouflage netting and blue and tan tarps. They smoked cigarettes, traded stories about their missions that day or tried to relax on a bizarre collection of stained bucket seats from a car, ripped floral futons, and vinyl and velour back seats torn from vans.

"So, are you a virgin?" one sergeant asked another, taking a long drag on his Marlboro.

"Oh no," the sergeant answered. "I've been hit by an I.E.D. already. Yep, got the first one out of the way awhile ago."

On every mission, the engineers search for signs of bombs by looking for discolorations in the sand, wires sticking from the ground or anything else that seems out of place. They also use a large armored vehicle called the Buffalo, which has a long hydraulic arm to search for I.E.D.'s inside things like garbage piles, traffic pylons and even dead dogs.

When one explodes, "the sound is so loud, it could make your heart stop beating," said Sergeant Harterson, who works as a crash investigator at a Navy aviation depot back home.

The Rigors of Work

The brigade that the 467th is attached to - the Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division - believes it is succeeding. The number of roadside bombs found in the area last month was half the number found in July one year ago.

Still the engineers are busy. The 467th is so experienced in seeking out bombs that soldiers from other units have asked to go along on missions. When a convoy is hit, the soldiers aboard earn the coveted Combat Action Badge, an honor that about 80 percent of the 467th qualified for soon after arriving in January.

The 467th battalion has lost only one man so far. Specialist Robert E. Hall Jr. from Pittsburgh was 30 when he was killed June 28 by a car bomb while guarding the gate of a base about 45 minutes from Warhorse.

Sgt. Dillon Ondo, 24, who is a prison guard from Glencoe, Ala., tries not to think about that death. He knows how close he has come.

On July 12, Sergeant Ondo's Humvee was slowly making its way down a highway seven miles from the base when a car on the side of the road exploded, sending shrapnel and a three-story firebomb into the air. The flames poured through a slit in the gunner's turret, where Sergeant Ondo was seated.

He ducked, covering the turret's hole with his body, but it was too late. His collar caught fire and his neck was singed. His left hand and his face, from nose to ear, had second-degree burns. He walked out of the vehicle and waited two hours until the explosive ordnance disposal team arrived to clean up the mess.

"I wasn't nervous before," said Sergeant Ondo, whose name has been submitted for a Purple Heart. "But now I start worrying as soon as we leave the front gate."

He continues to support the war, sure that the American military is improving the lives of the Iraqi people. Still, Sergeant Ondo has trouble sleeping now. Each night, he sits awake for nearly two hours, praying or thinking about his wife and 4-year-old son or daydreaming of fishing in his family's pond.

When his nerves begin to fray, he heads for the base's gym, which opened last month. It has a basketball court with a digital scoreboard, a section with elliptical machines and treadmills, and a weight-lifting area stocked with new Hammer Strength machines.

This week, he was at the gym making his barrel chest even broader. He bench-pressed 315 pounds, did flies with 55-pound dumbbells and lifted 230 pounds on the decline press. The scars on his face and neck are faint, but the one on his hand is still red, freckled and raw.

"I'm not mad about what happened, because sooner or later those insurgents are gonna meet their maker," he said. "I may have burned for 3 seconds, but they're going to burn for eternity."

Sergeant Ondo's injury was a turning point for many in the 467th, because it reminded them that they were not invincible.

"It really woke me up when I realized I could get hurt really bad or die out there," said Pfc. Antonio McEwen, from Forrest City, Ark.

Private McEwen, 22, and his half brother, Specialist Travis Dobbins, 21, who is also in Company A, 467th, joined the reserves for the challenge. Private McEwen, a carpenter, said he used to wonder if he was a survivor. "Now I'm terrified to find that out," he said.

Finding a way to relax is his biggest obstacle. He and Specialist Dobbins try to compete in something every day, although the constant missions make fielding full teams difficult.

"A lot of soldiers are pretty tightly wound, so sports is perfect for letting them release their aggressive energy," said Sergeant Rayner, who is the noncommissioned officer in charge of Company A's night operations. "Sometimes you get some Iraqi in a vehicle trying to get by your convoy, and an American soldier who is too riled up shoots him. Then you have a problem. You have a dead local on your hands.

"I'm not saying it has happened," he said, then paused. "But I'm not saying it didn't happen, either."

Private McEwen says he is afraid to shoot even a warning shot when he is the gunner because he is afraid of killing a bystander.

Instead, he tries to stay calm as he watches Iraqi people on the trash-strewn streets and sees children motioning to their mouths, asking for food.

But it is the older people who worry him. He is not sure whose side they are on. "Hey, we might make their country a little better, but a lot of people are still in poverty, a lot still hate us and look at us like they want us dead," he said. "How's that for boosting your morale?"

He said the only thing he could believe in here in Iraq was God. Either he was meant to die here, or he was not, he said.

Still, Private McEwen says the same prayer every time he leaves the base: "Please God, watch over this convoy. ... And please God, if a soldier dies, if I die, please take care of our families back home."

Playing Hard, to Forget

While other soldiers stay in their tents at night, sending e-mail messages or watching movies, Sergeant Harterson and his best friend, Sgt. Fredrick Martin, head to engineer's morale, welfare and recreation tent to play Monopoly. They follow the glow of a blue bug-zapper because there is a nightly blackout of all the lights on the base.

"C'mon dawg, Connecticut Avenue for Marvin Gardens," Sergeant Harterson said to another player during one particularly heated game last week.

But wherever they go to relax, Sergeant Harterson and Sergeant Martin are reminded they are at war. Nearly every building at Warhorse is named after a soldier or officer killed in Iraq, and sometimes the phones and Internet are suddenly shut off, signals that a soldier has been killed or seriously wounded. The military imposes that communications blackout to stop any leak of information before the family can be notified in person.

"The first thing you say is, 'Where and who?' " said Sergeant Martin, 30, a police officer in Memphis. He often goes for long runs to try to forget the war.

To further distract themselves, Sergeant Martin and Sergeant Harterson entered a basketball tournament this week with other men from their company. They had a mission on the day of the first game and were rushing back to make tip-off when they came upon the body of an Iraqi blown apart by a roadside bomb. The man had been planting an I.E.D. when the bomb exploded prematurely. The unit found an unexploded bomb planted nearby.

Sergeant Harterson and Sergeant Martin managed to make it to the game on time, but they were spent from their mission and lost, 42-21.

Walking out of the gym afterward, they looked up to see a wooden plaque commemorating their brigade's first casualty during this deployment, Sgt. First Class David J. Salie, 34, killed by a roadside bomb Feb. 14.

"Don't we always go by where he was killed?" Sergeant Martin asked. "Isn't that the big hole we go by next to that bridge, Harterson?"

"I think so," Sergeant Harterson said, shaking his head, then falling silent for a moment.

"Yeah, I think that's where the bomb got him."



Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[M&M Guy]

This should be required reading for all coaches before every game, to help remind them their game isn't the most important thing in life.