Thoughts on war

A week ago, on April 14, I heard from my son Jeremy who is a private first class in the United States Army -- a "tanker" who was in one of the most forward companies in the war in Iraq. His company, Charlie Company of the 1-64, 3rd Infantry Division, had been in Kuwait since September and had been out of touch since before the war began when they were sent to the Iraqi border to wait for orders to "roll north."

When I received that 2:45 a.m. phone call after six weeks of gluing myself to the midnight to 5 a.m. TV broadcasts scanning for a glimpse of him, after spending countless hours on the Internet searching for any word of him or his company, after coming in to work bleary-eyed with loss of sleep, it was heaven to hear his voice. He was in Baghdad, he said, and had been involved in a great deal of fighting -- much more than any of them had anticipated.

When Jeremy's company rolled into Najaf they followed in the wake of another company that rode through blasting, shooting and killing Iraqi soldiers. Charlie Company's role ended up being that of mop up crew. They had to finish the fight, round up the prisoners, and tend to the wounded -- not exactly the job the tankers thought they would be doing.

"War will change a man," Jeremy told me during our brief conversation. "It's certainly changed my perspective."

I read about the Najaf battle, the fighting along the road to Baghdad, and the Saturday show of force as the tankers drove through Baghdad before coming in two days later to take the city. A little more than a week before the phone call home I had finally located the online reports of Ron Martz, the reporter embedded with Jeremy's company. Although my son's name was never listed in any of the stories -- Martz only quoted sergeants and commanding officers -- I knew he was there. Between the Martz' lines was my son, fighting for people he didn't know, fighting for his life, for America, for us -- and I hung on every word.

Martz and photographer Brant Sanderlin, of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, were right beside my son all the way, just as they were when he made the long-awaited phone call home to his worried mother. It was the first "down time" his company had had since crossing the border, which meant the soldiers could finally think about something other than staying alive, pushing forward, keeping their equipment running and killing the enemy. One day of down time to bring life into focus.

"It's a whole different world over here," Jeremy told me in a voice that spoke the wisdom of a man much older than his 20 years. "I just wanna get home."

Three of their men had been injured, my son told me, and one KIA -- that's killed in action for us civilians. His unit was taking on "some of the more unpalatable tasks associated with cleaning up a city in the aftermath of heavy fighting. That includes removing and burying bodies and cleaning streets of rubble and wrecked and burned vehicles," according to Martz in an April 11 story. While my son didn't speak of his duties specifically, he did tell me he had seen way too many dead bodies, including those of women and children.

Relief units have arrived to take the place of my son's battle-weary company, but they were waiting for equipment to arrive, he said. He was hoping they would be coming back stateside within three or four weeks. The phone call I received was due to the kindness of the reporters who were leaving Iraq and heading back, Jeremy told me. They were letting each soldier take turns using their satellite phones to call home.

The next day I went online to AJC's Web site. There were no more reports, no more news from Charlie Company.

But the war's not over yet. Yes, there have been celebrations and Saddam Hussein's regime appears to no longer be in control of Iraq. Some American troops even arrived back home in the U.S. this week. But, as my son reminded me and I still too clearly recognize, the danger is not absent for the troops who remain. There are still snipers, suicide bombers, Fedayeen and Saddam loyalists who hide behind civilians at checkpoints only to come out shooting. When people approach the checkpoints they are instructed by the American soldiers to stop. If they don't, my son told me, he and his comrades fire two warning shots into the air. If that doesn't work? "We shoot them," he said matter-of-factly.

The TV is not blasting the news of the war on an hourly basis and Web searches now turn up little from embedded reporters. My computer is book-marked to the page "AJC'S RON MARTZ REPORTS FROM IRAQ." The screen seems to stare back at me blankly. Its last entry, "Sgt. Diaz's war" is dated 4.13.03. But America's sons and daughters, husbands and wives are still over there. They are still fighting -- for the Iraqi people, for their lives, for yours and for mine.

"Is it scary?" I asked him. "At first," he said, "but now, it's just annoying." Yes. War will certainly change a man.

Amy Menerey is a proud military mom and a reporter with the Frontiersman newspaper.