I met Chris at a protest in Philadelphia. I saw his digital camouflage raincoat in the crowd and introduced myself. I was wearing a shirt of the same camo pattern, so we started talking about where we served in Iraq and when.
Chris deployed to Iraq shortly after the U.S. invasion in late 2003. He went to Camp Bucca in the far east of Iraq just over the border with Kuwait.
In 2000, Chris wanted to go to college and didn't have the money, so he enlisted in the Army National Guard as an administrative specialist. He completed training and was settling in to the routine of Guard life when 9-11 happened. Chris had five years to go on his enlistment.
The Army National Guard Chris joined was not part of the front line fighting force of the American Army. It had the oldest and worst equipment often cast off from active and reserve units. Many Guard units had a long history of fighting in America's major wars, but not the Vietnam War. Nearly all National Guard soldiers stayed home during the Vietnam War, to the point where it was clear that joining the Guard was almost as good as getting a deferment.
But after 9-11 sweeping changes made the Guard part of the fighting force. In the preparation for the invasion of Iraq, Chris was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and retrained as an artilleryman. After that he was reassigned to a unit preparing for deployment in late 2003.
When he got to Iraq, he found, as I did later, that active duty units had not changed their minds about Guardsman no matter what the command said. "The active units took all of our guns and equipment. We became an admin unit. It was great for me. That's what I knew."
His brother joined the active Army after 9-11. On the first of his deployments he passed through Camp Bucca on the way to combat service near Baghdad. Chris moved to Philadelphia after he left the Guard and his brother left active duty. He cared for his brother as injuries both in the military and after his service eventually ended his life.
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Talking to Chris reminded me of Sarah, the first Global War on Terror veteran I knew personally. In 1999, Sarah was a mother of two who just bought a bakery. She wanted to learn more about accounting and eventually get a degree in management. She decided to enlist in the Army National Guard and train as a payroll specialist.
What could go wrong?
Shortly after September 11, 2001, Sarah's life was upended. She got orders to report to a training base after which she was headed for Kuwait. In the time after the invasion of Afghanistan and before the invasion of Iraq, Sarah was part of a team that set up the American bases across the Middle East and prepared to bring in people from all over the world as cooks and maintenance workers. Sarah worked on the payroll section.
Sarah flew all over the Persian Gulf region and beyond as the U.S. and other countries were beginning to plan for the Iraq invasion. She had done little traveling and had never expected to visit a place in so far from her Lancaster, Pennsylvania, home.
