Posted on: Monday, July 26, 2004
U.S. troops prepare for second tour of duty in Iraq
By Hanna Rosin
Washington Post
HINESVILLE, Ga. — Yes, sir, this is Bush country: Real pit barbecues, yellow ribbons on church doors, wild boar in the woods. Fort Stewart 10 minutes away.
So why does party hostess Michele Bourque sound as defensive as if she were living in Berkeley?
"There's just so much negativity around," she says, explaining her decision to host this Party for the President, on National Party for the President Day. "There's not a lot of positive affirmation about why George W. Bush should be president. We just want to let people know, he's not as bad as people think."
Her husband, Staff Sgt. Kenneth Bourque, is about to be deployed to Iraq.
"Kerry, Kerry, Kerry," says one of the guests, Stacie Young. "These young guys in the squad say, 'I'm voting for Kerry,' " she says, meaning the guys who serve with her husband. "And I say, 'Why would you do that? Vote for your kids! Vote for your security!' "
To her husband, John, a sergeant who fought with the 11th Engineers, the view of Iraq in the media is unrecognizable. In the stories he tells, Iraq is a place where soldiers throw candies to children and drink sweet tea.
It's where he saw a sergeant get shot in the neck to save his platoon, where for the first time he felt a sense of purpose. Where "we felt like celebrities; we would march around and the people would chant, 'Saddam bad, Bush good.' "
Sometime around Election Day — rumors on the base say between November and January — troops from Fort Stewart will be deployed to Iraq. Most here belong to the 3rd Infantry Division, the one known during the war as the tip of the spear. They are the troops who fought in Najaf, led the march into Baghdad, seized Saddam International Airport and Saddam's palaces. So for most, this will be their second tour. But the mood going in this time is different.
Most have been home long enough to settle into a domestic routine, but not long enough to obscure the memory of watching someone in their unit get shot. Plus, this time the mission is murkier, the enemy more elusive and the return date open-ended.
"The first time, I was kind of scared, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. We did our jobs without too much of a struggle," says Spc. Ben Schlabach, who's in a maintenance company. "Now it's a totally different ballgame over there. You don't know who's on your side. You have to be alert, keep your eyes open. You don't know when you'll come home."
Any sense of adventure is dampened by the existence of a new Heroes Walk on base, 45 saplings planted in honor of the men of Fort Stewart who died in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Talk to a soldier eating his burger in the base's food court and he'll tell you he's ready to complete the mission and support his commander in chief.
"I got a job and I'll go out and do it," says Staff Sgt. Jeff Laplante. Others talk about unfinished business or even revenge, if someone they know was killed. They are professionals, they chose this path and they are deeply patriotic.
Paul Rieckhoff fought with the division and has since left the Army. This week, he is launching Operation Truth, a nonpartisan group dedicated to telling the public about the war in Iraq from the perspective of those who fought there.
"People can deal with it if it's honest and upfront," he says about the deployments. "But they've broken their word so many times it gets frustrating. Everyone says they love George W. Bush, but when you get over there and see your buddies blown up and then think: 'What the hell are we doing over there?' You start to think: 'Who do I hold responsible?'
"My overall encapsulation is that the public will be overwhelmingly surprised at how many people coming back from Iraq will not vote for George W. Bush."
The military hasn't pulled away from Bush. A recent poll of families with current and retired military members showed them supporting him 52 percent to 44 percent. But at Fort Stewart, some of the support seems less of the enthusiastic than of the devil-we-know variety.
Aaron Symonette is in a transportation unit about to return to Iraq, and his wife, Judy, says this time she's "twice as scared, twice as nervous. To be honest with you, I feel it's unnecessary, that we should have pulled out once we captured Saddam."
Aaron Symonette doesn't think about those larger questions except "whenever somebody gets captured or killed. That's when we think, man, why are we really here?"
The families were expecting soldiers home on July 2, 2003, so Judy lost weight, got her hair done, hung white banners and balloons, ironed the kids' clothes, bought a bottle of her husband's favorite champagne. And then the night before, she was told, no, he wasn't coming home yet, and he didn't until October.
Still, "although I'm irritated, I still would prefer Bush over Kerry," she says. "Bush has already started this thing and he knows what's going on. The rapport is already established. A new person would just have to be briefed all over again and that makes me nervous."
