Rebuilding self and country

KATE GOLDEN/Frontiersman reporter

The young U.S. Army military policeman from Wasilla was sent to aid reconstruction of a devastated Iraq. He protected high-ranking Iraqi officials. He trained Iraqi police. And he gave autographs.

"Kids would come out with pen and paper, say 'Thank you, mister, we love you,' ask for an autograph," Michael Peck, 22, said.

The soldiers, bound by security obligations, would give a false name or just a first name, or they'd sign illegibly.

That's how it was in Iraq, he said. Baghdad was filthy: trash all over the streets, stoplights dark, tangles of electrical wires jerry-rigged throughout the city. Other than the ones shooting at him, the people were lovely.

A liberated country

Peck was hopeful for Iraqi reconstruction for one big reason: Local enthusiasm.

Training Iraqi policemen, for example, was a snap. The Americans and the Iraqis drank tea together and enjoyed each other's company. And the Americans taught the Iraqis to set up attacks on insurgents, conduct search-and-seizures and patrol roads for improvised explosive devices.

By the end, the Iraqis were nearly self-sufficient.

"It wasn't 'This is what you got to do today,' but 'What do you got to do today?'" Peck said.

And it seemed to Peck that the number of recruits snowballed while he was there.

As his year there wore on, the exuberance of a people beginning to embrace freedom was manifested everywhere. Women came out to the markets. Kids went off to school. Peck said they looked happy.

American clothes, he said, started to appear more. Some women would wear pants and dresses instead of burkas. Nike, Adidas, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant started showing up on shirts.

"The attitude was, 'We're free; now we can wear what we want,'" he said.

Life in the unit

"Anybody that comes out strong, like 'I'm not scared,' they're lying," he said. "I was scared. You've just got to pump yourself up."

The company helped. From the start, the "Baghdad B——s," the men of the 4th Platoon of the 571st MP company, made a pact: They were family.

"We told each other, 'I got your back.'" This was literal. "You put your back to their back while they're p—ing," he said, gesturing a gun-at-the-ready position.

It's not as though they didn't have plenty of morale builders. Video games, movies from the PX, phone centers, football, cheap phone calls home - there were plenty of options.

Still, it's impossible to unwind completely when you've got mortars exploding twice a day around you, he said.

Twice a day, he endured the explosions of mortars shot over the Tigris River at the Green Zone, aimed by rebels who'd be pleased to hit anything.

"I'd be walking from the chow hall Š and I'd hear the whistle," he said, and he'd think, "Oh s—t." Again.

Iraqi shots into the air celebrating their World Cup soccer win, not intended to harm anyone, still unsettled the soldiers who heard the bullets come back down.

"You would hear the tink, tinks on the floor," Peck said.

Kelsey Peck, now 21, then his fiancée, spoke with him every day. But she asked him not to tell her about the details of the war. Still, sometimes on the phone she would hear mortars exploding in the background.

"I'm just telling her, 'Hey, babe, I gotta go,'" he said.

Does anyone cope?

"Sometimes people scream at people when they call home," he said. "It just messes with you."

Peck heard many a divorce progress over the phone. It was nothing new to him. On an earlier mission in Cuba, there'd been 10 divorces in a roughly 150-man company.

Conversations with Kelsey weren't always peachy. They fought, too. Yet the daily phone calls kept them both sane.

"He didn't call for two weeks once. It was a bad two weeks. My mom was about ready to kick me out," Kelsey said.

Brave new world

Peck's back in Wasilla, happy to be back and now grateful to those in his support system: not only his comrades, but the VFW, his family, friends. He's trying to remember the good times.

But even visiting friends in Wasilla can be rough when you still expect, any moment, to duck gunshot.

"I tell you straight up, I still jump when I see backfires on vehicles," he said. It's like mortars flashing.

He's had to make some minor adjustments - "I can't drive like I did in Iraq," he said, grinning - and some major ones. Counselors and chaplains monitor him and other returned soldiers for post-war syndrome.

Peck gets angry quickly, partly because he's remembering the stress of wondering if his car is going to explode when he gets into it, and partly for more present reasons, like his finances.

"You can't intermingle both of the problems," he admits, but it's hard to know where the anger's coming from.

Kelsey and Michael Peck have been married for six months now. She said he's a different person since his desert tour.

"He has changed, personality-wise. He's different. Seems like he gets upset easier. Gets cranky easy," she said.

What does she do?

"Get cranky back at him," she said, shrugging and nudging him gently.

"She's always been supportive," he countered, smiling.